In his motu proprio, <Doctoris Angelici>, of June 29, 1914, Pope Pius X
commanded that the universities and institutions of learning which were
empowered to grant academic degrees and the doctorate in sacred theology should
use the <Summa theologica> of St. Thomas as their text.

On March 7, 1916, the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities
interpreted this decree as follows: "The <Summa theologica> of St.
Thomas must be accepted as the text for the lectures inasmuch as they treat of
the scholastic part of the questions. The method to be followed is this: the
<Summa theologica> is to be consulted frequently and explained together
with some other text which presents the logical order of the questions and the
positive teaching" (<Acta Apost. Sedis>, VIII, 157).

To meet this demand, we have already published three treatises: <De
revelatione ab Ecclesia proposita, De Deo uno, De Eucharistia>. The first
part of this present work treats of the Trinity. After presenting the testimony
of the Scriptures and the Fathers, we explain the questions in St. Thomas'
<Summa theologica>, article by article, comparing his doctrine with the
teaching of earlier and later theologians.

We have laid great stress on St. Thomas' concept of relation because from it
flow all the other conclusions in this treatise, and these conclusions will
appear to be in accord with the fundamental thesis of the Thomistic treatise on
the one God which establishes that God is self-subsisting Being and that
consequently there is but one nature in Him although the real relations in God
are really distinct from one another.

In this way we shall show how St. Thomas perfected St. Augustine's teaching
on the Trinity. As St. Augustine solved many difficulties remaining in the
doctrine of the Greek Fathers on the Trinity, so St. Thomas explained many of
St. Augustine's doubts about the processions, relations, and persons. This will
become abundantly clear as we proceed to the different parts of the present
treatise. We shall give particular attention to the indwelling of the Holy
Trinity in the souls of the just.

With regard to the questions on creation, the distinction of things, their
preservation, and on evil, we shall explain each article because they are all of
great importance. In the treatises on the angels, corporeal creatures, and man,
we shall study only the more important questions, laying special emphasis on the
principles which throw light on the whole matter. It is well to descend from
these principles to the conclusions and then rise from the conclusions to the
principles, so that the unity of our science will become clear and that our
study may dispose to a contemplation of divine things and to a true union with
God.

We hope that in some degree at least we shall attain the goal envisaged by
the Vatican Council: "Human reason illumined by faith, when it inquires
diligently and piously and sincerely, will with God's help attain to a most
fruitful understanding of the mysteries both from the analogies of those things
which it knows naturally and from the interconnection between the mysteries
themselves and between the mysteries and man's ultimate end."

THE TRINITYIntroduction

1. The Importance Of This Treatise

If we read the Fathers of the Church and the ancient theologians, I we shall
see that for them the dogma of the Trinity, however obscure it may have been for
them, was of the greatest importance. Thus Tertullian[1] asked: "What is
the substance of the New Testament, except that the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, believed to be three, are one God?" The words of St. Hilary[2]
on this mystery, expressed in the sign of the cross, with which Christians sign
themselves, have been quoted many times; "This is what the Church
understood, what the synagogue did not believe, what philosophy could not
grasp." The dogma of the Trinity, therefore, is that fundamental truth by
which believing Christians are distinguished from the Jews and pagans.

Both the Greek and the Latin Fathers wrote long treatises on the Trinity, at
first as positive and apologetic theology and later as speculative theology.
Among the Greek Fathers we find St. Athanasius,[3] St. Basil,[4] St. Gregory
Nazianzen,[5] St. Gregory of Nyssa,[6] Didymus,[7] Cyril of Alexandria,[8] St.
John Damascene;[9] and among the Latin Fathers, St. Hilary,[10] St. Ambrose,[11]
St. Augustine,[12] St. Fulgentius,[13] and Boetius.[14]

Among the Scholastics, all the great theologians and their commentators wrote
speculative treatises on the Trinity; among modern positive theologians, Petau
and Thomassin wrote at length on this dogma. Finally, the more recent
theologians have accorded this dogma the same importance, as Franzelin, Scheeben,[15]
Kuhn, Billot, Buonpensiere, de Regnon[16] (who wrote four volumes, 1892-98), and
J. Lebreton.[17] Father Jugie's recent work is based on the sources of
revelation and the teachings of the dissident Oriental Churches.[18] A. d'Ales
wrote his <De Deo Trino> in 1934; P. Galtier wrote <De SS. Trinitate in
se et in nobis> in 1933; L. Choppin, <La Trinite chez les Peres,
Apostoliques> in 1925; F. Cavalerra, <Les premieres formules trinitaires
de S. Augustin> in 1925, and M. Schmaus, <Die Psychologie Trinitatslehre
des hl. Augustinus> in 1927.[19]

In view of this theological activity it is surprising that toward the end of
the last century the question of the importance of this dogma should have
arisen.[20] With regard to this question three positions may be distinguished.

Certain Protestants, holding that this mystery is incomprehensible, declared
that God revealed it as an enigma to humble human reason, which seeks to measure
all things according to its own principles, and not in order to perfect our
intellects by sublime and fruitful knowledge.

This position, which is in opposition to the whole tradition of the doctors,
exaggerates and distorts a truth. It is indeed true that in the revelation of
this mystery God shows us that His intimate life and His divinity transcend even
our highest and most universal analogical concepts, the concepts of being and
unity. For the Deity as such, naturally unknowable, is in a sense above the
being and unity which are naturally knowable, as Cajetan said so well.[21] The
revelation of the mystery of the Trinity shows that the Deity is also above the
absolute and the relative for, as we shall see, the Deity as it is in itself is
not really distinct from the divine relations, from paternity, filiation, and
spiration. Thus it is not something merely absolute nor merely relative, but
something above these, the supreme enigma. But must we conclude that the
manifestation of this enigma was intended solely to humble our reason and not
also to perfect and illuminate it?

Many other Protestants during the nineteenth century, and some Catholics too,
like Hirscher, declared that this dogma indeed illuminated our minds, but only
in an extrinsic manner. They thought that for us the Trinity had no intrinsic
importance, but that it served only to obviate contradictions in the other
mysteries of the incarnation of the Son of God and the sending of the Holy
Ghost, which in themselves are of great value to us.

The basis of this position, as its authors declared, is that the dogma of the
Trinity taken intrinsically, prescinding from the other truths with which it is
connected, cannot perfect our inner life, our faith, hope, and charity. They
argue as if it mattered not to our interior life whether we believe that there
are four divine persons, or that the divine persons are not really distinct from
one another. Since, according to these men, God did not reveal this mystery
because of its intrinsic validity, any theological attempt to penetrate it is
futile, and therefore the treatise on the Trinity is merely an introduction to
the treatises on the redemptive Incarnation and the mission of the Holy Ghost,
which perfect our faith, hope, and charity.

Such an introduction, they said, is necessary to prevent any contradiction
between the essential truths intrinsically necessary for the Christian life:
between 1. the unity of God, which is the fundamental truth of the Old
Testament; 2. the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who, according to
the Gospels, is not entirely identified with His Father; and 3. the divinity of
the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete and Sanctifier, sent by the Father and the Son.
These are the essential dogmas of Christianity, which cannot be reconciled
without the distinction and the consubstantiality of the three divine persons,
as is clear from the first centuries, when Sabellianism denied the real
distinction between the three divine persons, and when Arius and others denied
the consubstantiality of the Son and the Holy Spirit. According to this position
the dogma of the Trinity was revealed to illuminate our minds but solely in an
extrinsic manner to prevent contradictions in the other mysteries.

The Modernists, however, like Le Roy, extended this position in a pragmatic
sense, declaring, "The dogmas of faith are to be accepted only in a
practical sense, that is, only as preceptive norms of action and not as rules of
faith."[22] Thus, for the Modernists the formula of the dogma of the
Trinity was introduced into the professions of faith to prevent such heresies as
oppose the Christian life.

This position is similar to Locke's Nominalist philosophical position. Locke
taught that the principle of contradiction is a solemn futility, in itself of
slight importance but necessary nonetheless to obviate absurdity in our thought
and speech.

If a principle is necessary to avoid error, is it without all intrinsic
value? Certainly contradictions are not eliminated from our thinking without
some positive illumination, and the principle of contradiction precludes all
absurdity only because it is a fundamental law of real being and of thought.
Thus, ontology is not a solemn futility but an important part of metaphysics
which, in opposition to absolute evolutionism, defends the validity of the
principles of contradiction and identity, which was denied by Heraclitus when he
said," ll things are becoming and nothing exists and in the becoming itself
being and non-being are identified."

So also in the spiritual order, charity dispels all discord because it is the
supreme virtue uniting the soul with God and also uniting souls to one another.
Similarly, the mystery of the Trinity would not exclude every contradiction in
the other mysteries of the incarnation of the Son and the sending of the Holy
Spirit unless it were the expression of the intimate life of God in the most
sublime aspect of that life.

The third position is the traditional view of those who hold that the dogma
of the Trinity possesses intrinsic value of the greatest importance for us. This
position was defended during the nineteenth century by Kleutgen (<Theologie
der Vorzeit>) and Scheeben, whose fundamental reasoning may here be stated
briefly and later developed during the course of this treatise. This dogma 1.
perfects our natural knowledge of God the Creator, 2. it gives us supernatural
knowledge of the intimate life of God, and 3. it throws light from above on
other supernatural mysteries.

The first reason is found in St. Thomas: "The knowledge of the divine
persons was necessary for right thinking about the creation of things. For when
we say that God made all things by His Word we avoid the error of those who say
that God made all things necessarily because of His nature. But when we discover
in God the procession of love we see that God produced creatures not because of
any need, nor because of any extrinsic cause, but because of the love of His
goodness."[23] This is to say, as Scheeben points out, that the revelation
of the mystery of the Trinity perfects and confirms our natural knowledge of God
the Creator and of creation as an entirely free act of God <ad extra>.
This will be all the more apparent when we remember that many philosophers
denied the freedom of creation because of the Platonic and Neoplatonic principle
that the good is essentially diffusive of itself. But God is the highest good.
Therefore God is essentially and to the greatest degree diffusive of Himself
even as the sun radiates its light and heat everywhere by its very nature.

Reply. That good is diffusive of itself according to its particular aptitude,
I concede; that it is always so because of its actuality, I deny. On this
principle St. Thomas[24] showed that creation was fitting and proper, but in his
following article he went on to say that, although creation is fitting it is
entirely free because "the goodness of God is perfect and is able to be
without other beings since nothing of perfection accrues to it from other
beings." Some obscurity remains, however; for if God had created nothing,
how would the principle that good is diffusive of itself be verified in God? In
the first place how could there be an end eliciting the action of creation, and
secondly how would creation be effected? Here Leibnitz erred by saying that
creation is not physically but morally necessary, and that God would not be
perfectly wise and good if He had not created, and moreover if He had not
created the best of all possible worlds. Such was also the teaching of
Malebranche. This obscurity is clarified by the revelation of the mystery of the
Trinity, for, even if God had created nothing, there would still be in Him the
infinite fecundity of the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Holy
Ghost. Thus the principle that good is diffusive of itself is perfectly verified
in God. Indeed the highest good is necessarily diffusive of itself within itself
but not by causality; by a communication which is not only a participation in
its nature but a communication of His entire indivisible nature, of His entire
intimate life in the generation of His Son, who was not made, and in the
spiration of the Holy Ghost.

Thus from a higher plane comes confirmation that creation is an entirely free
act by which God communicates without Himself a participation of His being, His
life, and His knowledge. Thus also it is more evident that God is not the
intrinsic cause but the extrinsic cause of the universe, the end for which it
was created, the being that created, conserves, and keeps it in motion.

If, therefore, God created actually, it was through love, to show in an
entirely free act His goodness, and not in any way by a necessity of His nature,
as St. Thomas taught in the passage cited above against the pantheists and
against that absolute optimism which is found in the teaching of Leibnitz and
Malebranche.

The second reason supporting the traditional view is that the revelation of
the Trinity has intrinsic value for us and is of the greatest importance for the
supernatural knowledge of God in His intimate life and immanent operations. No
created intellect by its own natural powers is able to know the formal object of
the uncreated intellect which is the Deity in its own proper aspect of Deity;
the created intellect knows God only according to the common and analogical
terms of being, unity, truth, goodness, and so on. For if any created intellect,
human or angelic, could attain even confusedly and vaguely to the formal object
of the uncreated intellect, it would then be of that same nature as are the
intellects of the ignorant man and the greatest philosopher. Then we would have
that pantheistic confusion of the uncreated and created natures which, like
sanctifying grace, would be a participation in the formal nature of God. This is
profoundly explained by St. Thomas: "It is not by his natural knowledge
that the angel knows what God is, because the very nature of the angel by which
he attains to the knowledge of God is an effect not commensurate with the power
of the cause that made it."[25]

The angel, and especially man, by his natural knowledge cannot attain to God
except by those perfections in which he can share in the natural order, such as
being, unity, goodness. But God as He is in Himself cannot be shared in the
natural order; such participation can be only in the supernatural order by
sanctifying grace. Thus even an angel in his natural knowledge is related to God
as He is in Himself as the eye that perceives all the colors of the rainbow but
would not perceive white light from which the colors are derived as inadequate
effects. St. Thomas taught: "Revelation most properly defines God inasmuch
as He is the highest cause, teaching not only that which is knowable by
creatures but also communicating how He is known to Himself alone and to others
in revelation."[26] This is primarily the Godhead Himself, or the intimate
life of God, which is properly made known by the revelation of the Trinity.

In the Trinity we see the infinite and eternal fecundity of the divine
nature, which is communicated by the Father to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost by
the Father and the Son. The Protestant theologians mentioned above say that the
mystery of the Trinity is an enigma without meaning for our interior life, but
the traditional theologians say that in this mystery of the Trinity we come to
some knowledge of the most perfect intellectual life, that is in the three
persons, who in the same divine truth live by the same act of pure intelligence
which is subsisting intelligence itself.

So also in this mystery there is some manifestation of the supreme life of
charity in the love of the three divine persons, who in the same infinite
goodness live by the same act of pure love, which is subsisting love itself.

Here we have the supreme model of our supernatural life, the love of the
three divine persons, since our adoptive sonship is the image participating in
the eternal filiation of the only-begotten Son.[27] For so Christ prayed for us
to the Father: "That they may be one, as We also are" (John 17:11);
and St. Paul writing to the Romans said: "For whom He foreknew, He also
predestined to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the
first-born among many brethren."[28]

By its own powers the created intellect could not know this essentially
supernatural mystery, and without some revelation, more or less obscure, there
would be no explicit knowledge of the intimate life of God in itself. Some
implicit knowledge of the intimate life of God, however, is obtained when we
believe that God is and that He is the rewarder, for we know Him not only as the
author of nature but also as the author of grace and the remunerator in the
order of salvation. The intimate life of God, therefore, is known from the
effects of grace and salvation, but this life is known explicitly in itself in
the mystery of the Trinity, although not with that clarity with which it will be
seen in heaven.

This is clearly expressed by Alexander of Hales[29] and still more clearly by
St. Thomas, who says: "Only this can be known about God by natural reason,
that He necessarily possesses being inasmuch as He is the principle of all
beings. God's creative power is common to the entire Trinity and pertains
therefore to the unity of essence and not to the distinction of
persons."[30]

Objection. This knowledge of the intimate life of God remains so obscure that
it does not of itself throw any positive light on the human mind.

Reply. Clearly even a very imperfect knowledge of the intimate life of God is
of the utmost importance for us in this life since it is an anticipation of
eternal life. This knowledge will correspond to our natural inefficacious and
conditional desire of seeing the essence of the first cause and the intimate
conciliation of the divine attributes; it corresponds also to our supernatural
and efficacious desire which proceeds from infused hope and especially from
infused charity, which is the true friendship between God and the just man. Any
friendship presupposes a union of the friends and strives for a more intimate
union between them.

To say, therefore, that the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity is
without real value for us is to look at the matter from a naturalistic
viewpoint. We recall here the words of Aristotle: "Man should be attracted
to divine and immortal things as much as he is able, and however little he may
see of these things, that little is to be loved and desired more than all
knowledge he has of inferior substances."[31]

Christ our Lord pointed out the importance of the mystery of the Trinity when
He said: "But I have called you friends; because all things whatsoever I
have heard of My Father, I have made known to you, "[32] and "Father,
I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me; that
they may see My glory which Thou hast given Me, because Thou hast loved Me
before the creation of the world."[33] These words refer primarily to the
eternal generation of the Word.

Indeed the act and the fruit of charity is that rejoicing in God because God
is infinitely perfect in Himself.[34] This joy, however, is greatly increased by
the knowledge of God's inner life and His infinite fecundity. This is what St.
Paul meant, writing to the Colossians: "That their hearts may be comforted,
being instructed in charity, and unto all riches of fullness of understanding,
unto the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ Jesus: in whom
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."[35]

When theologians abandon the contemplation of divine things, they say that
the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity is of no intrinsic value for us,
that it is useful only to prevent contradictions in the enunciation of other
mysteries. And because of this trend theology gradually became
anti-contemplative. Men began to write books of theology devoid of contemplation
and piety, just as if they were to write books of piety devoid of doctrine. The
Fathers of the Church and the great doctors, on the contrary, looked on the
mystery of the Trinity as having the greatest importance for us. The tract on
the Trinity, of course, was not purely practical like the tracts on penance and
matrimony, but it afforded the greatest help in attaining the higher stages of
contemplation and union with God.

Amid his tribulations, St. Hilary, writing of the Trinity, said: "The
persecution of men is a small thing because the persecutors cannot touch the
divine persons nor diminish their joy." A friend rejoices in the joy of his
friend, and the just man rejoices in the beatitude of God.

All the great doctors who wrote about the Trinity, from St. Athanasius to St.
Thomas, were true contemplatives, deeply concerned not only with purely
practical human affairs but also with divine things, with the divine life
itself, the knowledge and love of which is the beginning of eternal life. By the
revelation of the Trinity we are given the supernatural knowledge of God, as
distinct from natural knowledge; and immediately the distinction of the two
orders of knowledge becomes clearer. This was the great argument against Baius,
who denied the essential distinction between nature and grace, as if grace were
something owing to nature.[36] This distinction between the two orders stood out
so clearly in the revelation of the dogma of the Trinity that some rationalists
taught that the tract on the one God contained all that could be said about God.
Consequently the Protestant liberals, who are rationalists in a sense, no longer
mention the Trinity, speaking exclusively of the unity of God, and therefore
came to be known as Unitarians.

Finally, the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity not only serves to
obviate contradictions in the teaching of the other mysteries, but also throws a
positive light from above on all the other supernatural mysteries, on the
redemptive Incarnation, the sending of the Holy Ghost, and the life of grace.
All this will be clear to us in heaven, but even now we can see that the visible
and invisible missions of the divine persons presuppose the internal
processions, because no one is sent by himself, but the Son is sent by the
Father, and the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. Again, our
adoptive sonship is the image and participation in the sonship of the eternal
Son, since the only-begotten Son is "the first-born among many
brethren."[37] Adoption is attributed to the Father as to its author, to
the Son as to the model, and to the Holy Ghost as to Him who imprints the
character. So also the friendship between the saints and the just is an image
participating in the friendship of the divine persons, according to our Lord's
words, "that they may be one, as We also are." The life of grace is,
as it were, a reflected light, manifesting God's inner life and the divine
processions.

Thus St. Thomas taught: "The knowledge of the divine persons was
necessary for us,... especially that we might think correctly about the
salvation of the human race, which is accomplished by the incarnate Son and the
gift of the Holy Spirit."[38] He says it was necessary for correct positive
thinking, not only to avoid contradiction negatively. The reason is that a truth
which excludes equivocation and absurdity in any teaching is a higher truth,
such as those eminent principles of being and reasoning and ontology itself in
the philosophical sphere. This will stand out most clearly after we have
attained the light of glory; when we see the Trinity clearly, the other
supernatural mysteries will be lucidly evident.

We see, therefore, that the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity has not
only an extrinsic value, but an intrinsic worth in illuminating our minds, for
it makes manifest to us the principal and supreme object of our faith, which
according to the arrangement of the Apostles' Creed is the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost and those things attributed to them in the order of salvation.

Lastly, we should point out that the just here on earth, until that time when
they reach the height of perfection which is called the transforming union,
described by St. Theresa in the seventh mansion, enjoy the contemplation of the
mystery of the Trinity amid the darkness of faith, which is really the highest
exercise of the theological virtues and of the gift of understanding and wisdom.

Looking at the matter from this exalted viewpoint, those opinions which hold
that the mystery of the Trinity is of no intrinsic value appear not as the dicta
of wise men but rather as the fruit of spiritual stupidity and ignorance in the
scriptural sense of the word. St. Paul said: "Although we speak wisdom
among the perfect; yet not the wisdom of the world,... but we speak the wisdom
of God in a mystery,... that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it
entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love
Him."[39]

2. The Teaching Of The Church On The Trinity

The Catholic doctrine on the Trinity is expressed in the various creeds and
definitions, such as the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene
Creed, and many others of later date, and in Denzinger.[40] Finally, the
Catholic belief in the Trinity was summed up by the Fourth Lateran Council
(1215) in that famous chapter, <Firmiter>: "Firmly we believe and
simply we confess that one alone is true God, the Father, the Son, the Holy
Spirit, three persons, but one essence, one substance, and one nature entirely
simple. The Father is from no one, the Son from the Father alone, and the Holy
Ghost equally from both... consubstantial, co-equal, co-omnipotent, and
co-eternal... . We confess and believe with Peter Lombard that it is one supreme
being, incomprehensible and ineffable; this supreme being is truly the Father
and the Son and the Holy Ghost, three persons together and each one singly; and
therefore in God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, because each of the
three persons is that thing, that substance, that essence, that divine
nature."[41]

Again, "No real distinction exists between the essence and the persons,
but a real distinction exists between the persons among themselves."[42]

Again, the three persons are one principle of operation without, because the
divine operation without proceeds from the divine omnipotence, which is common
to the three divine persons.[43]

This definition of the Fourth Lateran Council was amplified by the Council of
Florence (1439) in the dogmatic decree of the union of the Greeks: "We
define that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son and that He
has His essence and His subsisting being simultaneously from the Father and the
Son, and that He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and by one
spiration."[44] Other definitions about each person in particular may be
found here.

The mystery of the Trinity may be more briefly stated as the mystery of one
God in three divine persons. But in opposition to the pseudo-synod of Pistoia it
should be said that it is not one God divided into three persons but one God in
three distinct persons, since there is no real distinction in the Godhead
Himself, as the Eleventh Council of Toledo declared: "The Godhead is not
reduced to single persons and is not increased into three persons."[45]

The Traditional Symbol Of The Trinity

The equilateral triangle is commonly proposed as a symbol expressive of this
mystery, and the symbol expresses more than is sometimes thought. It very
tangibly expresses an outline of the mystery with respect to the distinction
between the persons and those things that flow from it.

(a) The three angles are really distinct from each other although they are
not really distinct from the area of the triangle, which is numerically the same
for all three angles. Thus the three divine persons are really distinct from
each other but not from the divine essence, which is numerically the same in all
three persons. Further, the three angles are really distinguished from each
other by opposite relations but not from the area to which they are in no way
opposed; so also it is with the three divine persons.

(b) The three angles are equal and, as it were, consubstantial because they
are constituted by the same surface which is no greater in the three than it is
in one. Thus there is one surface in three distinct angles but not distinguished
into three angles.

(c) Each angle renders the surface incommunicable in its own way,
nevertheless when the first angle is formed it does not cause the surface of the
other angles although it communicates its surface to the second angle, and
through the second angle to the third. Thus the first angle, although not really
distinct from its surface, communicates that surface without communicating
itself. In the Trinity the Father communicates the divine nature but not
Himself; likewise the Son with respect to the Holy Ghost.

(d) Lastly, even though the angles are equal, there is among them an order of
origin without causality: the first angle once formed becomes the principle of
the second, and both of these are the principle of the third. At the same time
the second and third are not caused by the first because their surfaces are not
caused, but it is the surface of the first which is communicated to them. This
analogy will become clearer when the principal definitions of the Church on the
Trinity are reduced to the following propositions, which are often written
around an equilateral triangle as below.

(diagram page 15)

The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God, and yet the Father
is not the Son, because He does not generate Himself; nor is the Father the Holy
Ghost, or the Son the Holy Ghost, because those who spirate are distinguished
from that which is spirated as he who generates is distinguished from that which
is generated. In the statement of this mystery we see the profound meaning of
the word "is" and of the negation "is not." As St. Thomas
says:[46] In every affirmative proposition about some reality the word
"is" expresses the real identity of the subject and predicate. Here it
expresses the real identity of the three divine persons with the divine essence,
and the negation "is not" expresses the real distinction of the
persons from each other. In this statement of the mystery the apparent
contradiction is explained, that contradiction arising if God would be said to
be one and three under the same aspects, e. g., nature.

In the Catholic Catechism, written by Cardinal Gasparri, this mystery is
defined as:

(a) "God is one in the unity of nature in three really distinct persons,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who constitute the Holy
Trinity."[47] Thus the Father is the Godhead but He is not the Trinity.

(b) How are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost distinguished from one
another?

Answer. By the opposite relations of the persons, inasmuch as the Father
generates the Son, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from both. (The Father does not
generate Himself.)

(c) How are the three divine persons one God?

A. Because they are consubstantial, that is, they have one and the same
divine nature and therefore the same attributes or perfections and operations
<ad extra.> (The operations <ad extra> proceed from omnipotence,
which is common to the three persons.)

(d) Is not power usually attributed to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and
goodness to the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures?

A. Although all the attributes of divinity are common to the three divine
persons, the Scriptures usually attribute power to the Father because He is the
font of origin, wisdom to the Son because He is the word of the Father, and
goodness and holiness to the Holy Ghost because He is the love of the other
two.[48]

We will spend no more time in the simple statement of this mystery; the
explanation of the terms nature, person, and so on will be found in St. Thomas'
articles.

3. Trinitarian Errors

We are here not concerned with atheists and pantheists, who deny God the
Creator Himself, nor with the rationalists, who simply reject every supernatural
mystery. The errors about the Trinity can be easily divided into those which
attempt to safeguard the unity of the divine nature by denying either the real
distinction between the persons (Monarchians and Sabellians) or the
consubstantiality of the persons (Subordinationists, Arians, Macedonians).
Opposed to these are the Tritheists who say there are three natures in God in
order to safeguard the Trinity of persons.[49]

We see how divine providence permits errors and heresies that the truth made
stand out more clearly, just as it permits sin for a greater good. With regard
to the Trinity, God permitted errors to appear which are opposed to one another
as early as the first three centuries. During that time all the principal
aspects of this supreme mystery were speculatively considered and this supreme
dogma stood forth in the clearest light. In the East particularly the chief
speculative heresies, those of the metaphysical order, preceded the Pelagian
heresy, which is of the moral order and originated in the West.

The Trinitarian errors can be so classified as to support the axiom that
erroneous systems often are true in what they affirm and false in what they deny
because the reality with which they deal is higher and broader than the heresies
themselves.

(diagram page 17)

Denial
Trinity of persons
With respect to their real distinction—Monarchians & Modalists
With respect to their consubstantiality—Arians and Macedonians
Unity of nature—The Tritheism of Roscelline (11th cent.) and of Abbot Joachim
(12th Cent.)

It would be difficult to imagine any other errors, unless we include the
errors of modern rationalists, such as Kant.

These errors can also be presented in a way to show the opposition existing
between them. Between Unitarianism (Monarchists, Modalists, and Arians) and
Tritheism, the Catholic dogma of the Trinity appears as the highest point of
truth, like the apex of a pyramid rising from errors opposed to one another. The
errors thus opposed to one another appear false in what they deny, e. g., the
denial of the Trinity or of the divine unity, and true in what they affirm,
because the divine reality is infinitely broader than the limited concepts of
the human mind. As we shall see, the medieval conflict between nominalism and
realism had considerable influence on these theological questions.

Errors Denying The Real Distinction Between The Persons

In the second century the Monarchians, believing in only one divine
principle, declared that Christ was only man endowed with some divine power
(Paul of Samosata) or that Christ was the Father who became incarnate and
suffered (Patripassians). Chief among the Patripassians were Noetus, who was
opposed in the East by Hippolytus, and Praxeas, whom Tertullian refuted in the
West. Noetus and Praxeas argued that the Father and the Son were not really
distinct but merely different names for the same person.

In the third century Sabellius proposed his Modalism, so called because in
God he did not admit distinct persons but only accidental modes. Later the
Modalists taught that in God there was but one person, who manifested Himself in
three modes: as the lawgiver in the Old Testament (the Father), as the Redeemer
in the New Testament (the Son), and finally as the sanctifier or Holy Spirit.
The Sabellians and Modalists were opposed by Tertullian, St. Dionysius of
Alexandria, St. Zephyrinus, and Callistus.[50]

In the seventh century Modalism was revived by the Mohammedans. Mohammed
admitted the existence of only God the Creator, Allah, who alone was to be
adored, excluding the Trinity of persons. The Islamic formula of prayer,
"There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet, " was in
Mohammed's mind a negation of the Trinity and contained within it the total
apostasy from the Christian faith, denying at the same time the dogmas of the
incarnation and redemption by Christ, who was no more than one of the prophets.
Those who now write about the mysticism of Islam, should note this essential
difference between Islam and Christianity.

In the Middle Ages, Modalism was again revived by the Waldensians and the
Socinians, and later by the Unitarians, who constitute the liberal wing of
Protestantism. It appears again in the theology of Kant, where God the Father is
called the lawgiver, the Son the ruler, and the Holy Spirit the judge. Modern
theosophists also are Unitarians, teaching that there is one eternal, infinite
being, which manifests itself in three ways: as the first <logos> or the
root of being, the second <logos> or the primitive duality, and the third
<logos> or the universal intelligence.[51] Others say in God there is
intelligence, without real distinction from the object and the union of these
two, and that these three may be called, in the Hegelian sense, the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. All these errors are revivals of the Modalism of the third
century.

Errors Denying The Divinity Of The Persons

Most famous of these heresies was that of Arius, a priest of Alexandria, who
was addicted to the Gnostic principle that God by reason of His excellence could
not immediately produce inferior creatures but required some superior creature
to mediate between Him and His creation. Following the leadership of the
Ebionites and Gnostics, Arius denied the divinity of the Son, declaring that the
Son was only the most perfect of creatures, made out of nothing in time, and
thus subordinate to God. Hence the name Subordinationism. According to Arius,
God the Father alone is eternal; the Father created the Son, not of His own
substance but out of nothing, and then God made use of the Son as an instrument
to create the universe and redeem men. According to Arius the Holy Ghost also is
a creature, inferior not only to the Father but also to the Son. Hence Arius, at
least in the beginning, held that the Son was entirely different from the Father
in nature. This error was attacked by Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, who
called a synod attended by almost a hundred bishops, and excommunicated Arius.
Best known among the opponents of Arius was St. Athanasius, who valiantly
defended the Catholic teaching and the words of St. John, "In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."[52]

To restore peace to the Church, a general council was called in 325 at Nicaea
in Bithynia, which defined against Arius that the Son is consubstantial with the
Father, homoousion two patri ("of the same substance with the
Father").[53] The Council's formula of faith was: "We believe in one
God, the Father almighty maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible
and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten
born of the Father, that is, out of the substance of the Father[not out of
nothing], God of God, light of light, true God of true God, born, not made, of
one substance with the Father, which in Greek is called <homoousion>, by
whom all things were made. And in the Holy Ghost... ." After Arianism was
thus condemned by the Church as a heresy, the Arians tried to dissimulate their
error and said that the Son was similar in nature to the Father, <homoiousion>
or <homoion>, but they refused to say that He was consubstantial or <homoousion>.
Such was the teaching of Basil of Ancyra and Auxentius of Milan, who are called
Semi-Arians. Arianism lasted into the sixth century, when it completely
disappeared.[54]

St. Athanasius' defense of the dogma may be briefly summed up as follows: The
Word is called God in St. John's prologue, "And the Word was God"; His
divinity is often affirmed in the epistles of St. Paul and by Christ Himself
when He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Further, the
Word deifies us, making us gods by participation, and for this it is necessary
that the Word be God essentially, consubstantial with the Father, although
distinct from Him as His Son. Similarly the Holy Ghost who vivifies us is
essentially God, and therefore is mentioned with the Father and the Son in the
formula of baptism.[55]

Following the principles that misled Arius, Eunomius concluded that the Holy
Ghost was not God but a creature made by the Son of God, inferior to Him and
similar to the angels. At about the same time, the Macedonians like the
Semi-Arians denied the divinity and consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost.
Eunomius was refuted by St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Basil of Caesarea, and St.
Ambrose. Macedonianism was condemned by St. Damasus in the fourth Council of
Rome (380) and in the following year by the second ecumenical Council of
Constantinople.[56] The most important definition of the Council is: "If
anyone shall say that the Holy Ghost is not truly and properly of the Father,
like the Son, of the divine substance, and true God, let him be anathema."
Thus in the fourth century, opposing these heresies, the Church explicitly
taught a Trinity of distinct persons, upheld their divinity and
consubstantiality, and so preserved the unity of essence together with the
distinction of persons. In the earliest centuries, therefore, the Church
explicitly condemned that Unitarianism which the liberal Protestants have
recently revived.

Tritheism

Tritheism as such did not appear until the Middle Ages. In the sixth century,
however, John Philoponus, a philosopher of Alexandria, prepared the way for
Tritheism when he identified person with nature and taught that there were three
natures in God and that there were still three persons in one God. In other
words, the three divine persons participate in the divine nature as three men
participate in human nature. He was condemned as a heretic in the Second Council
of Constantinople (the fifth ecumenical council).[57]

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the controversy about universals
affected questions about the Trinity in various ways. Roscellinus, the
celebrated doctor of Nominalism, taught that the divine essence could not be
common to three persons and that the three divine persons were three distinct
realities or substances, in much the same way that three souls or three angels
differ. Nevertheless, he said, the three divine persons form a certain unity
inasmuch as they are endowed with one will and the same power.

Roscellinus arrived at this conclusion because of his Nominalism, according
to which the universals have not even a fundamental existence in things, that is
to say, the universals have no objective reference but are merely words adopted
into our speech. Positivists and modern empiricists have returned to this view,
refusing to admit any essential difference between intellectual and sensitive
knowledge and reducing the idea to a composite image of the phantasm to which a
common name has been joined. According to pure Nominalism, therefore, the
universals do not exist in things even fundamentally; the only things that exist
are the individuals. Thus humanity designates the aggregate of men and not human
nature, which is specifically one. If, therefore, according to revelation, there
are three divine persons, the Nominalists cannot conceive how they can have the
same divine nature, especially a divine nature which is numerically one, nor do
they admit one specific nature for all men. St. Anselm attacked the Nominalism
of Roscellinus, and in 1092 it was condemned by the Synod of Soissons.[58]

In the eleventh century Gilbert Porretanus, who although he is often called a
Nominalist is really a realist, inclined to Tritheism in another way by teaching
that the divine relations are really distinct from the divine essence. Extreme
realism believes that the universal exists formally apart from the thing, and
consequently Gilbert placed real distinctions where they do not exist, for
example, in man between the metaphysical grades of being, substantiality,
corporeity, life, animality, rationality, unmindful of the fact that all these
things are reduced to one comprehensive concept of man.

Similarly this extreme realism places a certain real distinction, or at least
more than a virtual distinction, between the divine attributes, and also between
the divine essence and the divine persons. It thus inclines to Tritheism because
the "<esse in>" is multiplied in the divine persons and in the
divine relations opposed to one another, while St. Thomas has shown that the
"<esse in>" in the divine persons is not accidental but
substantial and therefore is not multiplied.[59]

Gilbert Porretanus was condemned by the Council of Reims in 1148.[60] From
his doctrine it would have followed that the divine relations would be accidents
in God. St. Thomas' reply[61] is that in God, who is pure act, no accident is
found, and the relations thus really distinguished from the divine substance
like accidents cannot constitute persons. As we shall see below, the
"<esse in>" of the relations in God is something substantial and
therefore not really distinguished from the substance.

Thus Roscellinus and Gilbert Porretanus by different routes reached Tritheism
by placing in God real distinctions which are not there. Finally, in the twelfth
century Abbot Joachim of Calabria fell into Tritheism in an effort to correct
Peter Lombard, whom he had misunderstood. He feared that the teaching of Peter
Lombard would lead to a kind of quaternity inasmuch as the divine essence was
neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost. Trying to avoid this error he
fell into another: he taught that between the three divine persons only a moral
unity existed, arising from the consent of the will, a unity such as exists
between a group of Christians. Consequently the divine nature would not be
unique or one numerically, but it would be multiplied. This error of Abbot
Joachim was condemned by the Fourth Lateran Council: "We, however, with the
approbation of the sacred council, believe and confess with Peter Lombard that
the supreme entity is one, incomprehensible and ineffable indeed, which is the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the three persons together and singly each
of the three persons. Therefore in God only a Trinity is found and not a
quaternity, since each of the three persons is that entity, namely, the divine
essence."[62] In this definition the word "is" in the statement,
"The divine essence is the Father, " indicates, as in every
affirmative proposition, the real identity of the subject and the predicate. The
divine essence is the Father without any real distinction; on the contrary the
Father is not the Son and between the two persons is found a real distinction, a
distinction which is antecedent to any consideration of the mind and based, as
was more clearly expressed by the Council of Florence, on the opposition of
relation.[63] In the Council of Florence, called to reconcile the schismatic
Greeks to the Church, was formulated the principle which illumines the whole
doctrine of the Trinity: "In God all things are one and the same where no
opposition of relation exists." This opposition of relation exists between
the divine persons themselves but not between the persons and the divine
substance. The doctrine of the Church thus appears as the apex of a pyramid
rising above the heresies opposed to each other which either deny the Trinity of
the divine persons or the numerical unity of the divine nature. According to the
judgment of the Church, these heresies are false in what they deny, whereas
something of the truth remains in what they affirm. Whatever these false
teachings affirm positively, such as the unity of nature and the Trinity of
persons, is also affirmed by the Church.

It should be noted that in the nineteenth century, Gunther inclined to
Tritheism when he defined personality as the consciousness of oneself. He
thought that if God were conscious of Himself by His divine essence only one
person would be in God. Accordingly he placed three distinct consciousnesses in
God, distinguishing between the subject of the consciousness (the Father), the
object of the consciousness (the Son), and the equality of both conscious of
itself (the Holy Ghost). He arrived in this way at three intelligences. This
error was condemned by Pius IX.[64]

Among the errors about the Trinity we must mention the theory of the
Modernists, who declare that the dogma of the Trinity, like other dogmas, is a
human invention, achieved by laborious effort and subject to continuous change
and evolution.[65]

From this brief enumeration of the errors about the Trinity, we see not only
the revealed truth as taught by the Church standing forth more clearly,
preserving both the unity of the divine nature and the Trinity of the divine
persons, but by reason of these errors the distinction between nature and person
is greatly clarified. As has often been said, the great difficulty in
determining this distinction arose from the difference between the Latin and
Greek terms. In the Western Church, the Latin word persona (prosopon) at first
meant a theatrical mask, worn by actors when impersonating famous individuals;
later the term was used for those who held some dignified position (a
personage), and finally it designated all men who are of their own right, that
is, capable of rights, and thus persons were distinguished from things. More
philosophically Boethius in the sixth century defined a person as "an
individual substance with a rational nature."[66] Today we define a person
as a free and intelligent subject.

In the Eastern Church, however, in the first centuries the terms <ousia>
and <<hypostasis>> were used indiscriminately to designate substance
and essence. This was the cause of many controversies and at the same time it
was realized that <prosopon>, with its etymological meaning of a
theatrical mask, did not clearly express the real distinction between the divine
persons. The Arians understood the term <<hypostasis>> to refer to
the substance and declared that there were in God three subordinate substances.
At length, at St. Athanasius' urging, the word <ousia> was accepted to
mean nature and the word <<hypostasis>> to mean person. From this
time the Greek <<hypostasis>> was equivalent to the Latin
<persona>, hence the expression hypostatic union to designate the union of
two natures in the one person of the incarnate Word; similarly three
<hypostases> in one nature were said to be in God. Later, among the Greek
Fathers, St. Basil further determined the meaning of these words. He taught that
<ousia> designated what was common (<to koinon>) to individuals of
the same species.[67] Even then the meaning was not clear because the nature
assumed by the Word, although it is individual, is not a person. Therefore
Leontius of Byzantium, to avoid confusing the individual humanity of Christ with
His divine person, defined <<hypostasis>> as a substance not only
individual but also separately existing of itself and truly incommunicable.[68]

St. Thomas perfected the definition of person when he said that a person is
an individual substance with a rational nature, that is, incommunicable,
existing of itself separately and operating separately of itself, of its own
right.[69] Today commonly, as we have said, a person is defined as a free and
intelligent subject, and this definition (analogically, yet properly) applies to
the human person, the angelic person, and the divine persons, as will be seen
more clearly below.

We find two tendencies among the Catholic doctors and theologians. The Greek
Fathers and theologians, when explaining this mystery, generally began with the
Trinity of persons as explicitly revealed in the New Testament, rather than with
the unity of nature. The Latins, on the other hand, especially after the time of
St. Augustine, generally started with the unity of nature, as stated in the
tract on the one God, and went on to the Trinity of persons. Thus the two groups
began from either extreme of the mystery and proceeded to the other and
therefore they were met with opposing difficulties: the Greeks found difficulty
in safeguarding the unity of nature, and the Latins had to be careful to
safeguard those things which are proper to the persons.

Among the Latin Scholastics we find a notable difference caused by the
controversy about universals, since some, like Scotus, placed between the divine
essence and the persons a formal distinction, actual on the part of the thing,
whereas the Nominalists made the distinction only verbal, such as exists between
Tully and Cicero. The Thomists, however, and many other theologians called it a
virtual distinction.

4. Scriptural Testimony On The Trinity

State of the question. It is better to speak of the testimony of the
Scriptures than to say that the existence of the Trinity is proved from the
Scriptures, for the Trinity is not proved, nor is it a theological conclusion,
but it is believed. To say that it is proved from the Scriptures is to insinuate
that faith is the conclusion of this syllogism: Whatever God has revealed is
true and is to be believed. But in the Scriptures God had revealed the mystery
of the Trinity. Therefore I believe this mystery. The real conclusion of this
syllogism, however, is that the Trinity is believable and should be believed.
This is a judgment of credibility, but not an act of faith which is simply an
essentially supernatural act, above discursive reasoning, and never the result
of a syllogism, because it is based immediately on the authority of God the
revealer, inasmuch as I believe in God revealing and God revealed by one and the
same act.[70]

This statement, that the existence of the Trinity is proved by the
Scriptures, can be accepted in the sense that this truth is proved to be of
faith by the Scriptures. It was in this sense that many Thomists used the
formula.

It is not necessary that every dogma be proved as revealed by the Scriptures,
since a dogma may be contained implicitly in the Scriptures and more clearly be
found in tradition, which preceded the Scriptures in the preaching of Christ and
the early preaching of the apostles, which were not completely recorded in
writing.

With regard to the origin of the dogma of the Trinity, the rationalists, the
Protestant liberals, and the Modernists say that Christ in no way taught that
God was triune, but only that God was the Father of all. They say further that
in the beginning the apostles indeed believed in God the Father and in Jesus
Christ, the man, the divine legate, and in the spirit, power, and operation of
God, but that they did not accept these terms as referring to three distinct
persons. About A.D. 80 we find in the Gospel of St. Matthew the formula of
baptism, in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are enumerated but
not as distinct persons. Shortly thereafter certain Christians, influenced by
the philosophy of Philo, concluded that Christ was the Logos, that intermediary
being between God and men. Others, because of their addiction to certain
Hellenic theories, concluded that Christ was the Son of God in a literal and
proper sense, and therefore equal to the Father. After long controversy this
theory was defined by the Council of Nicaea. For the rationalists, therefore,
the dogma of the Trinity is nothing more than a Judae-Hellenistic theory, slowly
elaborated during the first four centuries.

Against this rationalist interpretation, it can be shown from the testimony
of the Scriptures that this mystery was adumbrated in the Old Testament and more
fully revealed in the New Testament. In a course of dogmatic theology, however,
it is better to follow a regressive method by first explaining the texts of the
New Testament and then indicating how the mystery was adumbrated in the Old
Testament, just as we would regressively follow the course of a stream in order
to discover its source. In explaining the doctrine of the New Testament it is
more desirable to follow the order in which the revelation was proposed by
Christ and the apostles, considering first the texts about the three persons
together and then those about each person in particular.[71]

New Testament Testimony On The Three Persons

Presupposing a course in exegesis, our explanation of this doctrine of faith
ought to point out the theological sources. As great rivers come down from the
mountains, so sacred theology descends from the heights of doctrine as expressed
in Sacred Scripture and in tradition, and then, in the end, theology should
ascend to the heights and dispose us to a contemplation of divine things.[72]

We shall first consider the New Testament testimony on the three divine
persons together as found: 1. in the Synoptic Gospels, the first expression of
Christian preaching; 2. in the epistles of the apostles, the first of which were
written about A.D. 53; 3. in the Gospel of St. John, written about A.D. 80
against those who denied the divinity of Christ. First we shall cite the clear
texts and then point out the difficulties arising from the more obscure
passages.

The Synoptic Gospels. The first text, sufficiently clear to show the mystery
of the Trinity, is found in Luke 1:30-35, where the incarnation of the Word is
announced to Mary by the archangel Gabriel, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also
the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."

The Trinity of persons is clearly enunciated in this text, for the angel is
sent by God the Father, who is often referred to as the Most High, and the Holy
Ghost and the Son of the most high God are distinguished from the Father. That
which was to be born of the Virgin Mary was not the Father or the Holy Ghost,
but the Son of God. The consubstantiality of the persons is also implied in the
text especially since the term "Son of God" is not used in the broad
sense but in the proper sense, inasmuch as farther on (Luke 1:43) Mary is called
the mother of the Lord. Finally, the Holy Ghost, to whom the work of the
Incarnation is attributed is not less than the Father and the Son. This is the
first manifestation of the Trinity in the New Testament before the Incarnation.

The second text of the Synoptic Gospels is Matt. 3:16 and Luke 9:34 (cf. II
Pet. 1:17), before the beginning of Christ's public ministry at the time of His
baptism. In Matthew we read: "And Jesus being baptized, forthwith came out
of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to Him: and He saw the Spirit of
God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him. And behold a voice from heaven,
saying: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." These words
were spoken by God the Father in this solemn theophany.

More clearly than in the first text we see the distinction of the persons,
since the Father speaks from heaven and the Son by this personal appellation is
opposed to the person of the Father. The Holy Ghost is distinguished from both
the Father and Son, for while the Father speaks from heaven the Holy Ghost in
the form of a dove descends upon Christ, who is called the Son of God.

It is sufficiently clear that the Father is not the Son, for no one is ever
called the father of himself, and that the Father and the Son are not the Holy
Ghost. If the Father, antecedent to all consideration of our minds, is not the
Son, then they are really distinct; and if the Father and the Son are not the
Holy Ghost, they are really distinct from Him.

In this text, too, there is some manifestation of the divinity of the Son,
since He is called <ho huios>, with the article, that is, son not in the
wide but proper sense, and the Father added, "In whom I am well pleased,
" that is, beloved above all others. As Father Ceuppens remarks, "It
should be noted that the three Synoptic Gospels use the same expression, <ho
agapetos> (beloved), and this term is never used in the New Testament for an
adoptive son and seems to have the meaning of <ho monogenes> ("only,
or only-begotten").[73]

In this text the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of God (Matt.) and is
therefore not any divine spirit, such as an angel, but a well defined Spirit, to
pneuma. And lest there be any further doubt, St. Luke added <to pneuma to
agion> (3:22), that divine person who throughout the New Testament is called
the Holy Ghost and who together with the Father and the Son constitutes the Holy
Trinity.[74]

The third text of the Synoptic Gospels is Matt. 28:19 and Mark 16:13, the
formula of baptism, which Christ, before He ascended into heaven, transmitted to
the apostles while He was commissioning them to preach the gospel. This is at
the end of the whole Gospel, as the first manifestation was at the beginning
prior to the Incarnation. In the text from St. Matthew we read: "Going
therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost." The personal distinction is clearer in the
Greek, where the conjunction kai and the article are repeated before the name of
each person. This emphatic repetition of the article cannot be explained except
by the real distinction between the persons. Moreover the Father is not the Son,
since these are personal nouns and not impersonal nouns, like truth, goodness,
wisdom, which indicate divine attributes pertaining to the divine nature. Thus
Father and Son designate distinct persons, and if this is true then the third
term ought also to designate a distinct person.

Lastly, the text implies that the divinity of these three persons, like the
baptismal grace bestowed in their name, cannot be conferred except in the name
of God, and thus in this formula the same worship of latria is given to the
three persons. In the formula, then, the Son and the Holy Ghost are equal to the
Father; if they are not God, they would be infinitely below the Father.

The rationalists and liberals, acknowledging the force of this text, have
tried to impugn its genuineness because Eusebius gives the words of Christ as,
"baptizing them in My name." The objection is futile, however, since
all the codices give the received text, and almost all the Fathers before
Eusebius, among them St. Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Origen. Eusebius
himself sometimes gives the received text and sometimes the short form.[75]

The Epistles. In the Epistles we find three witnesses to the three persons.
The first is II Cor. 13:13 (according to Harnack, A.D. 53): "The grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God and the communication of the Holy
Ghost be with you all." Here St. Paul attributes to three persons the
granting of sanctifying grace; but God alone is the author of grace, of the
remission of sin, and of salvation. We refer the reader to Job 14:4: "Who
can make him clean that is conceived of unclean seed? Is it not Thou who only
art?"; and to Ps. 83:12: "The Lord will give grace and glory";
and Jas. 4:6: "God... giveth grace to the humble." The second
testimony is Eph. 4:4 ff. (according to Harnack, A.D. 57-59), where the Apostle
is speaking of the mystical body of Christ, "one body and one Spirit,...
one Lord (namely, Christ), one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all,
who is above all, and through all, and in us all." The equality of the
persons is inferred from the fact that the three together confer grace, of which
God alone is the author. This was St. Athanasius' great argument: God alone
deifies.

The third testimony is I Pet. 1:1 f.: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus
Christ... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto the
sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied." As in the other
texts, the three persons are presented as the highest source of grace.

The Gospel of St. John (according to Harnack and Zahn, written between 80 and
110) clearly affirms the Trinity of persons and their equality. We quote only
the two principal texts referring to the three persons.

The first is John 14:16 and 26, concerning the promise of the Holy Ghost made
by Christ at the Last Supper: "And I will ask the Father, and He shall give
you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever,... but the Paraclete,
the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all
things." Here we see a clear distinction between the Father who sends the
Spirit, and the Son who asks the Father to send the Spirit, and the Spirit who
is sent by the Father in the name of the Son. Certainly the one who sends is
distinct from him who is sent, antecedent to our thinking the sender is not the
one who is sent, and thus the Father is not the Son, for the one who generates
is not the one who is generated. If we rightly understand the meaning of the
verb "is" and the negation "is not, " the real distinction
between the persons will be clear, a distinction which is antecedent to our
mind's consideration. Although those things which the Scripture speaks of here
are intimately united, they are really distinct; the substance of bread is not
its quantity, but they are intimately united. So, in this text and in the
context the consubstantiality of the three persons emerges, for a little earlier
(John 14:9-11) Christ said: "He that seeth Me seeth the Father also... . Do
you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?" Again John
10:30: "I and the Father are one"; John 15:26: "the Spirit of
truth, who proceedeth from the Father"; John 16:13: "But when He, the
Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth."

The second text of St. John referring to the three persons together is the
famous Johannine comma: "And there are three who give testimony in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one" (I John
5:7). A great controversy has arisen about the genuineness of this text. Those
who attack the text argue from the fact that it is not found in any Greek codex
of any authority, nor in many Latin codices and versions. From this they
conclude that this "comma" was originally a marginal note which in the
course of time was incorporated into the text. Consequently the text would enjoy
only the force of tradition. The defenders of the text say that it was always in
the Latin version, which is more ancient than the Greek codices, for it is found
in many Latin codices and is cited by many of the Fathers, by Tertullian, St.
Cyprian, and St. Augustine. The omission of this verse in the Greek codices is
explained by the fact that the seventh and eighth verses begin and end in the
same way and thus the scribes could easily have omitted the seventh verse. In
the Latin version the seventh verse is: "And there are three who give
testimony in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And these three
are one." The eighth verse is: "And there are three that give
testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three
are one."

On this matter the Holy Office has issued two declarations.[76] In the first,
dated January 13, 1927, we read: "The authenticity of this text of St. John
cannot be safely denied or called into doubt." Later, on June 2, 1927, the
Holy Office declared: "This decree has been issued to repress the temerity
of those private teachers who have attributed to themselves the right of
completely rejecting this 'comma' of St. John or at least by their final
judgment of calling it into doubt... . It is in no way intended to deter
Catholic writers from investigating the matter more fully,... or from adopting
an opinion opposed to the genuineness of the text, as long as they profess to be
willing to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom has been committed by
Jesus Christ the duty not only of interpreting the Sacred Scriptures but also of
guarding them faithfully."

We proceed now to the testimonies in the New Testament about the individual
persons of the Trinity.

Special Testimonies About God The Father

In the Sacred Scriptures God is called Father in a threefold sense: 1. in the
broadest sense by reason of the creation, thus He is called the "father of
rain" (Job 38:28); 2. in the broad sense by reason of the adoption of men
as His sons, thus He is called our Father in the Lord's Prayer; 3. in the strict
and proper sense by reason of the generation of His only-begotten Son. Thus
Christ Himself, of whom it was said," his is My beloved Son" (Matt.
3:17), said, not "our Father, " but "My Father": "It is
My Father that glorifieth Me" (John 8:54); "Come, ye blessed of My
Father" (Matt. 25:34); "I must be about My Father's business"
(Luke 2:49); "No one can snatch them out of the hand of My Father"
(John 10:29); "They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father"
(John 15:24); "I ascend to my Father and to your Father" (John 20:17).
God is not the Father of Jesus Christ in the same way as He is the Father of His
adopted sons, for in the prologue of St. John's Gospel we read: "The only
begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John
1:18). Frequently St. Paul speaks of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
for instance," hat... you may glorify God and the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ" (Rom. 15:6); and "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ" (II Cor. 1:3 and Eph. 1:3). Thus the Father is represented as
a person and moreover as a divine person; no one has called this into doubt. The
Father is called the Lord of heaven and earth and living God, as for instance,
"Thou art Christ the Son of the living God." Throughout the
seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, Christ invokes the Father as God, and
it is clear that the Father is a person distinct from the Son from the fact that
he who generates is distinct from him who is begotten. This will appear more
clearly when we speak of the Son.

Special Testimonies About God The Son

In Sacred Scripture the term son of God is used in a twofold sense: in the
broad sense for adoptive sons, and in the proper sense for the only-begotten Son
both before and after the Incarnation. References to the Son of God are to be
found 1. in the Synoptic Gospels, 2. in the Epistles, 3. in the Gospel of St.
John.

In the Synoptic Gospels Christ is described as the incarnate Son of God, not
only distinct from the Father but also equal to Him. The principal text is:
"All things are delivered to Me by My Father. And no one knoweth the Son,
but the Father; neither doth anyone know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom
it shall please the Son to reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27). From various codices
and from the Fathers it appears that this text is authentic, and its
authenticity is admitted by almost all critics, not only Catholics but also the
Protestant liberals. In this text is expressed the distinction between the
Father and the Son as well as the equality of knowability and knowledge which
presuppose an equality of nature and the identity of the divine nature.

"No one knoweth the Son, but the Father, " and therefore the Son is
above natural created knowledge and cannot be known naturally by anyone but God.
From this it follows that He is God. To this text we may add all the texts in
the Synoptic Gospels, in Christian apologetics, and in the tract on the
Incarnation, which demonstrate the divinity of Christ. These texts may be
grouped together as follows:

1. Jesus, according to His own testimony, is greater than all creatures,
greater than Jonas, Solomon, David, who called Him lord, greater than Moses and
Elias, who appeared beside Him at the Transfiguration, greater than St. John the
Baptist, greater than the angels "who ministered to Him" (Mark 1:13),
and of whom He said, "The Son of man shall send His angels" as His
servants (Matt. 13:41).

2. Jesus speaks as the supreme lawgiver, complementing and perfecting the
divine law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 10:21-48).

3. He vindicates for Himself the prerogative of forgiving sins, which
according to the Jews was a divine attribute (Matt. 9:2).

4. He assumed the right of judging the living and the dead, and of raising
the dead to life (Mark 14:62; 8:38; 13:26).

5. He promised to send the Holy Ghost, to whom He is therefore not inferior
(Luke 24:49), and He accepted the adoration which the apostles had rejected
(Matt. 8:2; 28:9, 17).

6. He is called the Son of the living God by St. Peter (Matt. 16:16).

7. In the parable of the vineyard He is called the Son of the lord of the
vineyard (Mark 12:1-12; also in Matthew and Luke). In this parable we are told
that the lord of the vineyard first sent his servants, who were put to death by
the workers in the vineyard. "Therefore having yet one son, most dear to
him; he also sent him unto them last of all,... and laying hold of him, they
killed him." Of the Pharisees who heard this parable, we read: "And
they sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the people. For they knew that
He spoke this parable to them." From all these texts of the Synoptic
Gospels it is clear that Jesus' utterances about His eminent dignity imply more
than a simple Messiahship and express a divine filiation entirely proper to Him,
constituting Him above all creatures, equal to God and God Himself, although
distinct from His Father.

In the epistles of the apostles and in their preaching, the divinity of
Christ is still more explicitly expressed.

In the Acts of the Apostles (3:13, 15), St. Peter declared: "The God of
our fathers hath glorified His Son Jesus, whom you indeed delivered up... . But
the author of life you killed." The author of life is none other than God.
Again in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter said: "Neither is there
salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men,
whereby we must be saved," that is, Jesus is the Savior of the world, the
author of grace and salvation. Of no prophet and of no angel were similar words
spoken. Again, "Him hath God exalted with His right hand, to be Prince and
Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins" (Acts 5:31).
But only God can be the Savior, forgiving sins. Similarly St. Peter calls Jesus
"the Lord of all, appointed by God judge of the living and of the
dead" (Acts 10:36, 42).

Since St. Peter uttered these words immediately after Pentecost, the argument
of the rationalists that a process of idealization intervened, transforming the
original preaching of Christ, has no validity. These words represent the
confirmation by the Holy Ghost of those things that Christ, during His public
ministry, said about His divine filiation. It should be remembered that the Acts
of the Apostles in its entirety is attributed to St. Luke, who was St. Paul's
co-worker, and this not only by all Catholic and conservative Protestant critics
but also by many rationalists, among them Renan, Reuss, and Harnack, and that it
was most probably written about A.D. 63-64.[77]

In the epistles of St. Paul we find the following references to the divinity
of the Son, as distinct from the Father. These texts are important since St.
Paul, beginning in the year 53, speaks of the divinity of Christ as a dogma
already received in the various churches before there was sufficient time for
any process of idealization.

1. St. Paul speaks of the Son of God in the strictest sense: "God
sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom 8. 3)

"He that spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us
all" (Rom. 8:32); "God sent His Son... that He might redeem them who
were under the law: that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 4:4
f.). In the last text the adopted sons are clearly distinguished from God's own
Son, and the only-begotten Son is represented as the Savior of the world.

2. St. Paul affirms the pre-existence of the Son of God before the
Incarnation: "Giving thanks to God the Father... who hath delivered us from
the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His
love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins. Who
is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature. For in Him
were all things created in heaven, and on earth, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominations or principalities or powers: all things were created by
Him and in Him. And He is before all, and by Him all things consist" (Col.
1:12-17). These attributes belong to God alone, and at the same time the Son of
God is distinguished from the Father. A little farther on we read: "Because
in Him, it hath well pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell; and
through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself" (w. 19 f.). Here the Son
of God is clearly called the Creator and the Savior.

Again, St. Paul says: "For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the
Godhead corporeally; and you are filled in Him, who is the head of all
principality and power" (Col. 2:9 f.). Writing to the Philippians, while
exhorting them to humility he casually says these sublime words: "For let
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of
God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but emptied Himself, taking
the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as
a man" (Phil. 2:5 ff.). In this text, the expression "in the form of
God" (qui in forma Dei esset) signifies the essence and nature of God, and
this interpretation is confirmed by the following words, "No be equal with
God." We could have no clearer statement of the pre-existing glory of the
Son of God before the Incarnation.

Writing to the Romans, St. Paul said: "For I wished myself to be an
anathema from Christ, for my brethren,... and of whom is Christ, according to
the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever. Amen" (Rom. 9:3
ff.). Some controversy exists whether the punctuation mark before the phrase
"who is over all things" is a comma or a period, but most critics,
even those who are considered liberal, admit the comma, and thus this phrase
refers to Christ.

Lastly, we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "In these days [God] hath
spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also
He made the world. Who being the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His
substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, making purgation
of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high" (1:2 f.). In
this text the Son of God, distinct from the Father, is declared to be the
Creator, the Preserver, and the Savior, "upholding all things by the word
of His power." In this Epistle also the Son of God is said to be superior
to Moses and the angels, the mediator and the high priest for all eternity.
Speaking in this manner, St. Paul intended to affirm, not something new, but
that which had been held by the different churches before this time. No time had
intervened, therefore, to permit any progressive idealization of the primitive
preaching.

In the Gospel according to St. John the divinity of Christ and the
distinction of the Son from the Father is so clearly enunciated that the
rationalists themselves have had to admit it, but they argue that this Gospel,
written against those who denied the divinity of Christ, was composed only in
the second century. Renan places it about A.D. 125, and Holtzmann between 100
and 123. The later rationalists however have had to acknowledge that it was
written toward the end of the first century: B. Weiss placing its composition in
the year go; Harnack between 80 and 110. The theory of the intervening process
of idealization is excluded by the fact that as early as 54 and 58 St. Paul
speaks of the eternal pre-existence of the Son of God.

With regard to the texts of the Fourth Gospel, we present first the words of
our Lord Himself and then the words of St. John the Evangelist in the prologue
of his Gospel, thus observing the order of revelation.

The words of our Lord referring to His divinity and His distinction from the
Father are the following.

"The Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He... said God was His
Father, making Himself equal to God. Then Jesus said to them... the Son cannot
do anything of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing: for what things
soever He doth, these the Son also doth in like manner... . For as the Father
raiseth up the dead, and giveth life; so the Son also giveth life to whom He
will. For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to
the Son. That all men may honor the Son, as they honor the Father... . For as
the Father has life in Himself, so He hath given to the Son also to have life in
Himself" (5:18-26). This thought will be more clearly presented below In
this text the same works <ad extra> of the Father are attributed to the
Son, particularly miracles and the sanctification of souls, of which God alone
is the author.

"Not that any man hath seen the Father; but He who is of God, He hath
seen the Father" (6:46); "You are from beneath, I am from above. You
are of this world, I am not of this world" (8:23); "For from God I
proceeded, and came" (8:42), that is, I proceeded from eternity and came in
time; "Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am"
(8:58), is a clear declaration of the pre-existence of the Son of God; "I
and the Father are one" (10:30), whereupon the Jews took up "stones to
stone Him."

"As the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father" (10:15), is an
affirmation of the equality of knowledge and nature, already expressed in St.
Matthew, "No one knoweth the Son, but the Father" (11:27); "I am
the way and the truth and the life" (14:6), that is, I not only possess
life and truth, but I am life and truth, and since truth and life are identical,
He alone is truth itself who is being itself by His essence, that is, subsisting
being. Such is the profound meaning of the verb "is" as distinguished
from "have" in the sentence, "I am truth and life," that
only He who can say, "I am who am," could utter these words.

"All things whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine. Therefore I said, that
He shall receive of Mine, and show it to you" (16:15). These words clearly
state that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.

"And now glorify Thou Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I
had, before the world was, with Thee,... because Thou hast loved Me before the
creation of the world" (17:5, 24).

Lastly, the revelation of this doctrine is enunciated by way of synthesis in
the prologue of St. John's Gospel, especially in the first four verses: "In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him: and without Him
was made nothing that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of
men" (John 1:1-4). These words contain the statement of two fundamental
truths: 1. the distinction of the Word from the Father, 2. the consubstantiality
of the Word with the Father. From these truths others follow in the
prologue.[78]

1. The distinction of the Word from the Father is enunciated in the words,
"The Word was with God, " for, as is commonly remarked, no one is said
to be with himself. One difficulty, however, arises from the fact that it is not
clearly stated that the Word is a person; it might be understood as similar to
the word of our mind which is in our intellect and "with" the
intellect. This difficulty, however, is removed by what is said later of the
Word, especially by the words," and the word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth" (1:14); and "No man hath seen God at
any time: the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath
declared Him" (1:18).

From these verses it is clear that the Word mentioned in the first verse is
the only-begotten Son who became incarnate and before this was in the bosom of
the Father, or "with Him," in the words of the first verse. From this
we may infer a real distinction between the Father and the only-begotten Son,
for apart from any consideration of the mind the Father is not the Son, and he
who begets does not beget himself. Father and Son, as has been said, are
personal nouns and not impersonal nouns like truth, goodness, and intelligence,
which designate the attributes of the divine nature. Therefore, apart from any
consideration of the mind, it is true to say that the Father is not the Son.

On the other hand, as theologians point out, we cannot say that, apart from
the consideration of the mind, the essence of God is not His intellect, for His
essence is subsisting being itself and subsisting intelligence itself; no real
distinction exists in God between His being and His essence, nor between His
essence, faculties, and operation. Therefore this proposition is false: God is
not His own being, as is also the following: God is not His own intelligence.
From revelation, however, we infer that the following is true: God the Father is
not the Son, for he who begets does not beget himself. If therefore, apart from
any consideration of our mind, the Father is not the Son, He is really distinct
from the Son.

2. The consubstantiality of the Word with the Father is expressed in the same
first verse, in the words, "he Word was God." According to the
generally accepted interpretation, for instance, that of St. Thomas in his
commentary on St. John's Gospel, in this phrase the term "Word"
(<ho logos>) is the subject and "God" is the predicate. This is
evident from the context, which refers to the attributes of the Word, and from
the Greek article <ho>, which precedes the term "Word" (<ho
logos>).

Moreover, in this sentence the predicate "God" retains its proper
meaning, as is evident from the parallel statements, "he Word was with
God," and "the Word was God," and from the second verse, "he
same was in the beginning with God." Thus, the word "God" is used
three times in its proper meaning, designating not God by participation, but God
Himself. The sense of the text is, therefore, that the Word is no less God than
He with whom He was from the beginning. There is, therefore, a perfect equality
between the Word and the Father. Moreover, since the most simple and infinite
divine nature cannot be multiplied, and since, as is clear from the Old
Testament and from philosophy, there cannot be many gods, it follows that the
Word and the Father are consubstantial. This consubstantiality was more
explicitly stated later at the Council of Nicaea. The words "in the
beginning" at the opening of the prologue mean first of all before the
creation of the world, as is clear from the context, and also from eternity,
since God is eternal and immutable, since before the creation no change took
place.

From these two truths others follow.

1. The Word together with the Father is the Creator. "All things were
made by Him: and without Him was made nothing that was made" (v. 3), that
is, nothing whatsoever was made without the Word. This follows from the fact
that the Word is God.

2. The Word is the author of both the natural and the supernatural life.
"In Him was life" (v. 4); thus He is the author of life equally with
the Father, since He is God. Jesus expressed this later on in the words,
"or as the Father has life in Himself, so He hath given to the Son also to
have life in Himself" (5:26), and this life is essential and subsisting
life and the cause of participating life, the life He spoke of when He said,
"I am the life." Further, the Word is the author of supernatural life,
as is clear from the words," and the life was the light of men, "which
are explained in verse 9, "that was the true light, which enlighteneth
every man that cometh into this world." Later on this is expressed still
more clearly, especially in verse 18, "No man hath seen God at any time:
the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him,
" and by our Lord's words to Nicodemus," or God so loved the world as
to give His only-begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish,
but may have life everlasting" (3:16).

In his commentary on the fourth verse of the prologue, "and the life was
the light of men," St. Thomas says: "This life may be explained in two
ways: first, as an infusion of natural knowledge; secondly, as the communication
of grace. It should be especially understood in the second way, because of what
follows, namely, 'And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not
comprehend it... . (John) came for a witness, to give testimony of the light,
that all men might believe through Him'" (w. 5, 7), believe, that is, to
attain salvation.

3. The Word is the author of our redemption. In verse twelve we read:
"But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of
God, to them that believe in His name," that is, by the Word we are made
adopted sons of God, as St. Paul said, "[God] who hath predestined us unto
the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself" (Eph. 1:5), and
"that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 4:5).

The five following truths, then, are announced in the Prologue of St. John's
Gospel: the Son of God is 1. distinct from the Father, 2. equal and
consubstantial with the Father, 3. the Creator, 4. the author of both the
natural and the supernatural life, 5. the Redeemer and the author of salvation.
In this way the divinity of the Word is proclaimed.

Objection. The rationalists and liberals say that this doctrine of the Word
apparently stems from Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, born about 20 B. C., who tried
to conciliate the monotheism of the Jews with the Neoplatonism in vogue at the
time in Alexandria. Relying on the Old Testament, Philo admitted the existence
of one personal God, the Provider, but in accord with the Greek philosophers of
Alexandria he held that the most high God could not produce this finite world
except through some intermediate being, which he called the <logos.> As a
Jew, Philo tried to reconcile two contradictory teachings, namely, monotheism
and free creation with the pantheistic doctrine of necessary emanation. Thus,
when he considers the <logos> under the Neoplatonic aspect he speaks of
him as an intermediate being, but when he considers the <logos> in the
light of the New Testament and Jewish monotheism he speaks of him as a divine
attribute.

Reply. The Catholic reply to this difficulty is the following. A great
difference exists between the <logos> of Philo and the Logos of St. John.
The Logos of St. John is neither a being beneath God nor a divine attribute, but
He is properly the Son of God the Father, at the same time God, the Creator, and
the Redeemer in the strict sense. Philo's <logos>, however, is in no way
the Redeemer. St. John's teaching, therefore, is not derived from Philo, but
from Christ's preaching, as explained by him, and as understood by the other
apostles, as we see in the preaching of St. Peter and in the epistles of St.
Paul. St. John could have found an adumbration of this mystery in the Old
Testament, especially in the Book of Wisdom, "or she is a vapor of the
power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God: and
therefore no defiled thing cometh into her. For she is the brightness of eternal
light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty" (7:25 f.).

As to the word "Logos" itself, St. John could have taken it from
revelation, but it would not be derogatory to admit, as many do, that he derived
it directly from Philo, for when the Evangelist was writing in Ephesus, Apollo
was preaching there, and Apollo was widely versed in Alexandrian philosophy.
Quite probably also the earliest heretics misused the word
"<logos>" to designate a being midway between God and the world.
St. John may have used the term to correct the current false interpretation,
when he said, "The Word[Logos] was God."[79]

We must add here that the Logos of St. John has no connection with the
teaching of Plotinus, who in the third century spoke of three subordinate
<hypostases>, of different rank, in his system of pantheistic emanationism.
Plotinus posited: 1. the One-Good, corresponding to Plato's idea of the good; 2.
the primal intelligence, or the <logos>, proceeding, not by a free
creation, but by a necessary emanation from the supreme good, to whom it was
inferior. Here the <logos>, according to Plotinus, resembled Aristotle's
god, who is "<noesis noeseos noesis>". In his primal
intelligence Plotinus tried to discern the duality of the subject and the object
known, besides a multitude of ideas for things that were to be produced.
Plotinus' third <<hypostasis>> was the soul of the universe,
corresponding to the god of the Stoics, from which, by a pantheistic emanation,
the seminal ideas of all things proceeded (<logoi spermatikoi>).

The difference between Plotinus' <hypostases> and the Trinity of
Christian revelation is evident. These three <hypostases> are distinctly
unequal, and in this pantheistic emanation a multitude of beings proceeds from
the supreme being not by free creation but by a necessary emanation, or by a
necessity of nature. As in all kinds of pantheism, the supernatural order of the
life of grace is denied; for here our human nature would be a participation of
the divine nature and could not be elevated to a higher order, and human reason
would be the seed of eternal life.

Lastly, the doctrine of the Word proclaimed in St. John's Gospel has no
resemblance to the Indian trinity, called Trimourti. In this system Brahma is
god, the producer of all things; Siva is god the destroyer, the destructive
force; and Vichnu was many times born in the flesh for the defense of the good.

The differences are obvious: 1. In the Trinity as revealed by Christ none of
the divine persons can be called the destroyer. This idea is an expression of
the pessimism and fatalism of the Indians. 2. In the Indian trinity, the three
manifestations of God, the producer, the destroyer, and the conserver, are
adopted with respect to the things of this world, and they seem rather to be
three aspects of the same supreme power; indeed it is often said that there is
no distinction in God except in appearance. 3. The Indian system does not
transcend pantheism and fails to preserve the idea of a free creation.

Special Testimonies About The Holy Ghost

1. In the Synoptic Gospels the Holy Ghost is less frequently mentioned than
the Son of God, because He was not incarnate, and sometimes in Sacred Scripture
the expression "Spirit of God" does not clearly designate a special
person. Nevertheless, as we pointed out in gathering the testimonies about the
three divine persons together in the Synoptic Gospels, the Holy Ghost appears as
a divine person, distinct from the others, in the formula of baptism (Matt.
28:19; Mark 16:13). In this formula Father and Son are personal nouns, and
therefore the third term should also designate a distinct divine person. This
truth appears, although not so clearly, in the words of the archangel Gabriel at
the time of the Annunciation, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee"
(Luke 1:35), and in the solemn theophany after Christ's baptism when Jesus
"saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him"
(Matt. 3:16; Luke 9:34).

Father Ceuppens distinguishes the texts in which it is clear from the context
that reference is made to the third person of the Blessed Trinity from those in
which there is rather reference to some divine virtue and not explicitly to the
Third Person.[80]

St. John the Baptist, St. Elizabeth, and St. Zachary are said to be filled
with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15, 41, 67).

Simeon is said to have "received an answer from the Holy Ghost... and
came by the Spirit into the temple" (Luke 2:26 f.).

St. John the Baptist announced a higher baptism to be conferred "in the
Holy Ghost" (Matt. 3:11), and "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the
desert" (Matt. 4:1).

Christ said: "Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it
shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall
not be forgiven him" (Matt. 12:32)."In view of the context," says
Father Ceuppens, "we do not think that the Holy Ghost here can be explained
as referring to the Third Person of the Trinity.[81]

Announcing to the apostles their imminent persecution, Jesus said: "It
shall be given you in that hour what to speak. For it is not you that speak, but
the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you" (Matt. 10:19 f.). He who
speaks is a person and not a divine attribute, and this promise was fulfilled by
the sending of the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Trinity, on Pentecost
(Acts 2:1, 4).

Thus the Synoptic Gospels reveal the Holy Ghost as a distinct, divine person,
to whom are attributed divine operations, in particular prophecy (the prophecy
of Simeon), and the sanctification of souls (the sanctification of St. John
Baptist). All this will become clearer in the Acts of the Apostles and in the
epistles of St. Paul.

2. In the Acts of the Apostles the Holy Ghost speaks as the person who
sanctifies men, who in the past inspired the prophets and now inspires the
apostles, who directs and rules them and constitutes them bishops. Thus we read:
"Now there were in the church which was at Antioch, prophets and
doctors,... and the Holy Ghost said to them: Separate me Saul and Barnabas, for
the work whereunto I have taken them... . So they being sent by the Holy Ghost,
went to Seleucia: and from thence they sailed to Cyprus" (Acts 13:1-4);
"The Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the Church of God"
(Acts 20:28); "Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?"
(Acts 19:2.) St. Paul says: "And now, behold, being bound in the spirit, I
go to Jerusalem, not knowing the things which shall befall me there: save that
the Holy Ghost in every city witnesseth to me, saying that bands and afflictions
wait for me at Jerusalem" (Acts 20:22 f.); and St. Peter said: "Men,
brethren, the scripture must needs be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost spoke
before by the mouth of David concerning Judas" (Acts 1:16). In all these
instances the Holy Ghost appears as a person. Again, St. Peter said that to lie
to the Holy Ghost is to lie to God: "Ananias, why hath Satan tempted thy
heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost?... Thou hast not lied to men,
but to God" (Acts 5:3 f.).

On this point the entire second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles about the
coming of the Holy Ghost can be cited: "And they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues according as the Holy
Ghost gave them to speak" (v. 4). Here, as in the other texts, the Holy
Ghost speaks as a divine person for only God sanctifies souls.

Father Ceuppens[82] says that the personal character of the Holy Ghost cannot
be inferred from some of the texts of the Acts of the Apostles in which He is
mentioned, for example, 1:5, 8; 2:4, 41; 8:12; 9:7; but that the Holy Ghost
appears explicitly as a person in the following: "And they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues according as
the Holy Ghost gave them to speak" (2:4). This was the fulfillment of
Christ's promise to send the person of the Holy Ghost. His personal character is
clear when He is said to rule the apostles (5:3, 9); also in the text," or
it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us" (15:28); "The Holy
Ghost said to them: Separate me Saul and Barnabas" (13:2), and when He
prevented St. Paul from going to Bithynia (16:7), when He foretold St. Paul's
sufferings (20:22 f.), and when He "placed you bishops to rule the church
of God" (20:28).

3. In the epistles of St. Paul many passages show the Holy Ghost to be a
distinct person and true God. He appears as a person when such properties and
actions are predicated of Him as pertain only to a person and not to a divine
attribute. The Holy Ghost is said to have an intellect," or the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" (I Cor. 2:10). To Him
are also attributed a will and operations, "but all these things one and
the same Spirit worketh, dividing to everyone according as He will" (I Cor.
12:11); graces <gratis datae>, like prophecy and the word of wisdom, are
conferred by Him.

The person mentioned here is also true God for He is said to have all
knowledge of divine things," or the Spirit searcheth all
things,[comprehends them], yea, the deep things of God" (I Cor. 2:10). Only
God can know future free things and reveal them to the prophets. To the Holy
Ghost are also attributed the works of regeneration and sanctification and these
are proper to God, as in "You are washed, but you are sanctified, but you
are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our
God" (I Cor. 6:11).

Lastly, according to St. Paul, the worship of latria is to be given to the
Holy Ghost, dwelling in the just soul: "Or know you not, that your members
are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you?" (I Cor. 6:19); but
temples are built for God. Therefore St. Paul added, "glorify and bear God
in your body" (v. 20). Father Ceuppens[83] remarks," some of these
texts, taken alone, might be understood as referring to a poetical
personification, as was said above about wisdom, but to comprehend the full
meaning of these texts we must keep in mind the Trinitarian formulas in St.
Paul's writings in which the Holy Ghost is placed on the same level with the
Father and the Son."

4. In St. John's Gospel the Holy Ghost clearly appears as a divine person
distinct from the other divine persons as was shown above in treating of the
three divine persons together: "And I will ask the Father, and He shall
give you another Paraclete... . But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost [to pneuma],
whom the Father will send in My name, he [ekeinos] will teach you all
things" (John 14:16, 26).[84] No one sends himself, and therefore the Holy
Ghost, who is sent, is distinct from the Father, who sends Him, and from the
Son, who asks the Father to send the Holy Ghost, because the Son was already
sent in the Incarnation. Here too (15:26) the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of
truth, that is, the source of truth, and He is said to possess perfect knowledge
so as to illuminate the apostles and perfect sanctity for the sanctification of
souls: "But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all
truth" (John 16:13). In all these passages the Holy Ghost is revealed as a
divine person.

We may conclude, therefore, that the books of the New Testament explicitly
reveal the mystery of one God in three distinct and perfectly equal divine
persons. This doctrine is completely at variance with the Stoics' pantheistic
concept of the <logos>, the world soul; from Neoplatonism, in which the
<logos> is a secondary <<hypostasis>> subordinate to the
One-Good; and from Philonism, in which the <logos> is either a creature or
a divine attribute, depending on whether Philo was speaking as a Jew or as a
Neoplatonist. We see, then, that the doctrine of Christ was not altered by the
Greek philosophers, but that it is an explicit manifestation of higher truth,
which in an obscure manner was already revealed in the Old Testament, as we
shall show immediately.

Objections. It has been pointed out before that the Arians and after them the
Socinians adduced certain texts of the New Testament to deny the divinity of the
Son and the Holy Ghost, for example, "go to the Father: for the Father is
greater than I" (John 14:28). To this we reply that going to the Father was
not predicated of Christ according to His divine nature, for in His divine
nature He is always in the Father.

I insist. In I Cor. 15:28 we read: "And when all things shall be subdued
unto Him, then the Son also Himself shall be subject unto Him that put all
things under Him."

Reply. Here St. Paul is speaking of the resurrection of Christ, which is
attributed to Christ in His human nature.

I insist. In Matt. 24:36 we read: "But of that day and hour no one
knoweth, no not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone."

Reply. St. Thomas,[85] St. John Chrysostom, and many other Fathers say that
these words are to be understood of Christ as man, for as man Christ is said to
be ignorant of the day of judgment; not absolutely, for St. Peter said,
"Lord, Thou knowest all things" (John 21:17), but He was ignorant of
the time with regard to revealing it to us.[86]

I insist. In I Thess. 5:19 we read: "Extinguish not the spirit."

Reply. The meaning of these words is: Do not place obstacles in the way of
the manifestations of the spirit, such as prophecy and the gift of tongues; do
not resist grace.

I insist. The spirit of an individual is not a person distinct from that
individual; but the Holy Ghost is often called the Spirit of God; therefore He
is not a distinct person.

Reply. I distinguish the major: if the word "spirit" is used to
denote an individual's essence or part of his essence or his manner of judging,
this I concede; otherwise, this I deny.

Thus, for instance, the spirit of an angel designates his whole essence, and
spirit of a man designates his manner of judging. Sometimes, however, spirit is
used to denote a person distinct from him of whom it is said to be the spirit;
for instance, the angels are called the spirits of God (Apoc. 3:1 ff.). No
repugnance arises, therefore, when we say that "Spirit of God" means a
distinct person, and from the context it is often clear that such is the case;
for instance, when it is said that the "Father sends His spirit," and
when this Spirit is said to be another Paraclete, distinct also from the Son.

The Mystery Of The Trinity In The Old Testament

The mystery of the Trinity is obscurely expressed in the Old Testament. We
give here certain passages that have a meaning more clearly understood after the
revelation of the New Testament.

1. A certain plurality in the one God is indicated, sometimes in the words of
God and again in the theophanies.

God's words seem to express a council between several persons in Gen.
1:26,"let us make man to our image and likeness." It might be said
that this is the plural of majesty, but this interpretation seems to be excluded
by God's words to Adam after the Fall," behold Adam is become as one of
us" (Gen. 3:22). The expression "one of us" indicates more than
the plural of majesty. We may also cite God's words, provoked by the pride of
the builders of the tower of Babel, "come ye, therefore, let us go down,
and there confound their tongue" (Gen. 11:7).[87]

The mystery of the Trinity sheds some light on why the seraphim cried to one
another: "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of
His glory" (Isa. 6:3). Another triple invocation of God is found in the
Book of Numbers in the formulas of benediction (6:24 ff.).

Something similar is found in the theophanies. In the opinion of St.
Augustine and St. Ambrose, Jahve appeared to Abraham in the guise of three men
to adumbrate the Trinity: "And the Lord appeared to him in the vale of
Mambre... and when he had lifted up his eyes, there appeared to him three men
standing near him: and as soon as he saw them he ran to meet them from the door
of his tent, and adored down to the ground" (Gen. 18:1 f.). The Roman
Breviary in explanation says, "We saw three and adored one."[88] This
was also the interpretation of St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, but others, among
them St. Hilary, understood this passage in a different sense.

In these words of God and in the theophanies, therefore, a certain plurality
is implied as existing in the one God, but it is not expressed so explicitly
that the Jews could understand it.

2. The person of the Messias is more explicitly revealed in the Messianic
prophecies, 1. as the Son of God, distinct from the Father, 2. as God, 3. when
He is called wisdom.[89]

In the psalms we read: "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art My son, this
day have I begotten thee" (2:7). This psalm is Messianic in the literal
sense, for the power that is promised to the new king is universal domination,
extending over the universe, and the concept of any universal dominion is
essentially Messianic. Therefore the king who is here proclaimed and who is to
assume this dominion is the Messias.

To this Messianic king Jahve said, "Thou art My son, this day have I
begotten thee." This sentence may be taken in the literal sense as
referring to the only-begotten Son, or in a metaphorical sense as referring to a
son by adoption. From the text alone it would be difficult to prove that this
statement is to be taken in its literal sense as referring to the divine
generation and to the eternal Messias. This passage merely states that the
Messias is formally constituted a king, but such election as king gave any
Oriental king and especially the king of the Jewish theocracy the title of
"son of God" in the metaphorical sense. From the text and from the
context as well it is difficult to affirm the divinity of the Messias with any
certainty, but we can easily conclude that the Messias would be a universal king
and in some very special way the son of God.

In the light of a new inspiration, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
determined the meaning of this psalm verse (2:7) when he said: "For to
which of the angels hath He said at any time, Thou art My son, today have I
begotten thee?" that is, the Son of God is above the angels. Thus the
Epistle to the Hebrews teaches us in what sense that most special filiation of
the Messias is to be understood: not as some metaphorical or adoptive filiation,
but as actual filiation. The argument here is theological, based on the New
Testament.[90]

In Psalm 109 (V. I, 3), which the Biblical Commission attributes to David, we
read: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at My right hand;... with thee is
the principality in the day of thy strength: in the brightness of the saints:
from the womb before the day star I begot thee." David is speaking of a
colloquy between Jahve and some person whom David calls his Lord. Who is this
person?

In order that David could call him his lord (Adonai), this person must be
someone greatly superior to David; he must have dominion over the whole
universe; and he must be a priest for all eternity according to the order of
Melchisedech. The two last qualities are verified only in the Messias. With
regard to the first quality, the superiority over David, we may ask whether this
superiority is one of degree only, as when both are human beings and one is
higher than the other, or a superiority of nature, as when the Messias is not
only a man but God also, the only-begotten Son of God. The point is not clear
either from the text or the context. Sometimes the expression, "it thou at
my right hand," is used to indicate the divinity of the Messias, but it is
also an Oriental figure of speech implying that an individual has been raised to
some special dignity, generally to the royal state. From the text and the
context alone we can conclude merely that the promised Messias would be greatly
superior to David; but what this superiority actually was is not clearly stated.
In the second century before Christ the Septuagint version interpreted this
superiority over David as one of nature, that is, they understood it as
referring to the divinity of the Messias, and later Christ Himself in His
disputations with the Pharisees argued His divinity from this text.[91]

In St. Matthew's Gospel we read: "The Lord said to my Lord... . If David
then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a
word" (22:44 ff.). The full meaning of the text appears from Christ's
interpretation in the New Testament.[92] As St. Augustine pointed out,[93] in
the expression, "Today have I begotten thee" the word
"today" signifies the permanent present moment of eternity, where
there is no past or future. Thus this eternal generation of the Son is above
time. St. Thomas, too, says that the generation is eternal; it is not a new
begetting but one that is eternal. "The 'today' designates what is present;
and that which is eternal is always."[94]

In Isaias we read: "For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us,
and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of
Peace" (9:6). The expression "God the Mighty" (El Gibbor) is
found in Isa. 10:21, Deut. 10:17, Jer. 32:18, Neh. 9:32 and always refers to
Jahve. It is never used with reference to a creature, even the highest, and
therefore Catholic exegetes accept this expression as designating the divine
quality of the Child.[95]

In these texts we see illustrated what was later said of Wisdom in the
Sapiential Books. In Prov. 8:22-31, Wisdom itself says, "The Lord possessed
me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I
was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were
not as yet, and I was already conceived,... before the hills I was brought
forth,... I was with Him forming all things: and was delighted every day,
playing before Him at all times."

This text is illuminated by Ps. 2:7, "Thou art My Son, this day have I
begotten Thee," and Ps. 109:3, "Before the day star I begot Thee,
" and it proclaims what St. Paul will say to the Hebrews (1:3) concerning
the Son, who is "the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His
substance." In this text from Proverbs, we find a certain distinction
between the persons in the words, "The Lord possessed Me," for no one
properly possesses himself. The pronoun "me" also designates a person,
and not a divine attribute, for later we read, "I was with Him forming all
things and was delighted, " that is, affected by joy, and only a person
would be affected by joy, not a divine attribute. In this text also we find some
indication that the principle of distinction between the two persons is the fact
that one is begotten by the other, begotten not made: "I was conceived, I
was brought forth." We find even some indication of the order of
procession, and nothing of inequality: "I was set up from eternity."

Thus this text, considered alongside the analogy of faith, or when it is
compared with other earlier and later texts, contains much that does not appear
at first sight. Gradually the contemplative mind is able to penetrate its full
meaning with the aid of the gift of understanding. For all these texts can be
studied in two ways: superficially with whatever aid comes from grammar and
history, or more profoundly in the light of faith and the gifts of the Holy
Ghost. Thus we search out the meaning of the word of God, understanding it in
that supernatural light in which it was originally written under the guidance of
the Holy Ghost. In this way it was that the Fathers read these texts. In our
churches the stained-glass windows can be looked at in two ways: from the
outside, where the figures cannot be discerned; and from within the church,
where all the design of the window can be seen in the light intended by the
artist.

Here, too, we should read the text of the Book of Ecclesiasticus (chap. 24):
"I [Wisdom] came out of the mouth of the Most High, the first-born before
all creatures. I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never
faileth... . In me is all grace of the way and of the truth." In this text,
the procession is indicated in the words, "I came out of the mouth of the
Most High": on the day of the Annunciation the archangel Gabriel called God
the Father the Most High and, Jesus the Son of the Most High. The text also
declares that Wisdom is begotten not made: "the first-born of all
creatures." Finally we find some indication of the order of procession in
the words: "there should rise light that never faileth... in which is all
grace of the way and of the truth."

It might be raised in objection that verse 14 refers to creation, "From
the beginning,... was I created." Father Lebreton replied that this verse
is to be explained from the context, in which, a little earlier, it is said that
Wisdom "came out of the mouth of the Most High, the firstborn before all
creatures." Therefore when we read, "From the beginning,... was I
created, " the word "create" is to be understood for the
production of a thing, as when it is said that children are procreated.[96]

Lastly, we read in the Book of Wisdom (7:25-30) that Wisdom is "a vapor
of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty
God: and therefore no defiled thing cometh in to her. For she is the brightness
of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of
His goodness... . She can do all things,... and conveyeth herself into holy
souls, she maketh the friends of God and prophets... . Being compared with the
light, she is found before it. For after this cometh night, but no evil can
overcome wisdom."

In the light of the preceding texts, this passage insinuates very probably
the existence of a person distinct from the Father, the same as that person
referred to in the psalms: "Thou art My son, this day have I begotten
Thee" (2:7), and "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at My right
hand" (109:1). Here Wisdom, as "the certain pure emanation of the
glory of the almighty God, appears as God from true God and as light from
light." Here Wisdom is called "the brightness of eternal light, and
the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His goodness," that
is, His adequate image, not an imperfect representation like the angels and men,
who are created to the image of God. Of this perfect and adequate image we read
that it "can do all things," because it is God Himself, and that it
sanctifies souls, which is an attribute proper to God. It is, therefore, the
uncreated light, without spot or blemish.

Many of the Fathers have compared this text with the beginning of the Epistle
to the Hebrews: "God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in
times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath
spoken to us by His Son,... who being the brightness of His glory [Wisdom was
called 'the brightness of eternal light'] and the figure of His substance
[Wisdom was called 'the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His
goodness'], and upholding all things by the word of His power [Wisdom was said
to be able 'to do all things'], making purgation of sins, sitteth on the right
hand of the majesty on high [Wisdom was said to 'make friends of God and
prophets']."

Lebreton, speaking of this chapter 7 of the Book of Wisdom, says:
"Wisdom has not all the features of a living personality,... yet in this
book we find the most precise presentiment of the Christian dogma. Soon the
authentic interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews will show in full light
that theology of the Word which we have been able to perceive there only
obscurely."[97]

In this passage of the Book of Wisdom, the Holy Ghost delineated what was to
appear more brilliantly in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel: "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
In opposition to all this, Philo's logos was either a creature, when he spoke as
a Neoplatonist, or a divine attribute, when he spoke as a Jew.

The Old Testament contains only obscure references to the Holy Ghost. Often,
indeed, the Spirit of God is mentioned, and He is represented as the principle
of life by which the face of the earth is renewed (Ps. 103:30), and as the
distributor of heavenly gifts (Isa. 11:2), the classic text concerning the gifts
of the Holy Ghost. But the personal distinction of the Holy Ghost from God the
Father can be hardly inferred from these texts of the Old Testament. This is not
surprising, since the Old Testament was to announce the coming of the Messias,
or of the Son, whereas the New Testament was to bring the Son's announcement of
the mission of the Holy Ghost.

We find, however, some indication of this distinction in the Book of Wisdom
(9:1 f., 17): "God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made all
things with Thy word, and by Thy wisdom hast appointed man... . And who shall
know Thy thought, except Thou give wisdom, and send Thy Holy Spirit from
above?"

Some light is thrown on this passage by the words of Isaias: "And there
shall come forth a rod from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of
this root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom,
and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of
knowledge, and of godliness. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear
of the Lord" (Isa. 11:1 ff.). Joining these two texts from the Old
Testament, we see what Christians understand by the words, "And who shall
know Thy thought... except Thou send Thy Holy Spirit from above?" On the
feast of Pentecost the Church repeats the words of the Psalmist, "Send
forth Thy spirit, and they shall be created" (Ps. 103:30). It should not be
surprising that the first lineaments of the mystery of the Trinity should be
obscure. Some features of the mystery were announced in the beginning, but that
which was to be more fully revealed later on could not then be known. In the
natural order the whole river is virtually known in the initial spring of a
great stream, but from that spring alone the whole course of the river cannot be
known. So also the extraordinary talents of a great genius are virtually found
in the mind of the child, but they are not explicit in the beginning.

Conclusion. All that was revealed in the Old Testament about the Messias,
Wisdom, and the Holy Spirit is the primitive delineation of the mystery of the
Holy Trinity. The Jews, however, apparently were not able to understand these
things or to unite them into one body of doctrine, as is evident from the
rabbinical and apocryphal writings. Thus it often occurs that the father and the
mother of a child who later becomes a great thinker are not able to appreciate
the acumen of the child, although later when the child has grown to manhood they
can discern his unusual gifts in the light of a maturer mind. It is said of St.
Thomas that when he was five years old he often asked his teachers, "Who is
God?" Most of his teachers were not able to foresee what would become of
the child. St. Albert the Great, however, seems to have foreseen the child's
future.

Doubt. In the Old Testament what kind of faith was necessary for salvation
with regard to God?

Reply. The answer is found in the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:6): "But
without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must
believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him." As St. Thomas
explained,[98] it was always necessary to believe something above reason, that
is, not only the existence of God as the author of nature but also the existence
of God as the author of grace and salvation. Faith in the Trinity is implicitly
contained in this supernatural belief. Explicit faith in the Trinity was not
necessary for salvation in the Old Testament. "Before Christ the mystery of
the incarnation of Christ was explicitly believed by the majority, while a
minority believed it implicitly and vaguely; the same was true of the mystery of
the Trinity."[99] It was in this sense that St. Thomas says in the same
place, "Therefore from the beginning it was necessary for salvation to
believe explicitly in the Trinity," at least for the leaders, among whom
were the prophets. In the same article in the reply to the first objection, St.
Thomas says: "It was necessary at all times and for all to believe
explicitly these two truths concerning God (that God is and that He is the
rewarder). But these two truths were not sufficient at all times for all."

5. The Blessed Trinity In Tradition

The testimony of tradition on the Holy Trinity is extensively treated in the
history of dogma. Here we shall discuss only the more important questions
relating to the difference between tradition in the ante-Nicene and post-Nicene
periods. These questions have at all times been discussed in the Church, and St.
Thomas himself wrote of them at length in his <Commentary on the Prologue of
the Fourth Gospel>, where he speaks of Origen's error about the Word, the Son
of God, and in the <Summa>, where he says, "The Arians, for whom
Origen was the source, taught that the Son was different from the Father by a
diversity of substance," and that the Word is said to be divine only
metaphorically and not properly.[100]

At the outset it should be noted, as is evident from the New Testament, that
from the beginning the Church believed explicitly in the mystery of the Trinity,
professing in concrete terms that God the Father sent His only-begotten Son into
the world and then the Holy Ghost came to sanctify men. This is the substance of
the Apostles' Creed itself. In defining this mystery the Church did not yet make
use of such abstract terms as nature, person, and Trinity, but it was already
clear that the words "Father" and "Son" were personal nouns.
This should be kept in mind lest the earlier sublime simplicity of
contemplation, which transcends the later technical terminology, be confused
with a later attempt to debase this doctrine by a superficial and spurious
simplicity. Some say that at first the faith of the Church was proposed in a
popular manner and later more scientifically; it would be better to say that in
the beginning the faith was expressed in a concrete manner, which in its
sublimity surpassed the abstract technicality of a later age. In the transition
from this concrete expression of the faith, particularly in the earliest Creeds,
to the abstract expression as formulated against Arianism in the Council of
Nicaea in 325, certain difficulties arose which were solved by the Nicene
Council itself. Thus in this matter we distinguish two periods: the ante-Nicene
and the post-Nicene periods. We see here how slowly man learns to abstract, how
he slowly attains to the third stage of abstraction divorced from all matter,
how at first his metaphysical notions are confused, and only later become
clarified and distinct. Then the danger of the abuse of abstraction arises as in
the decline of Scholasticism, when the mind receded too far from the concrete,
from the documents of revelation, and from the vital contemplation of divine
things.

Ante-Nicene Testimonies

In this period the documents which express the faith of the Church can easily
be reconciled with the later definitions of the Council of Nicaea, which state
the doctrine of the Trinity more explicitly. The writings of many ante-Nicene
Fathers, however, with their mingling of faith and philosophical theory, are
correct in their statement of the substance of the mystery, but the explanations
they offer often contain inexact expressions, some of which seem to incline to
Subordinationism, and others seem to favor Sabellianism or Modalism. We see here
how the evolution of dogma is the progressive unfolding of the same truth, from
the indistinct and concrete concepts to the more defined and distinct concepts.

We should not be surprised to learn that the early Fathers used such inexact
expressions since they were confronted with the problem of refuting heresies
which were mutually opposed; to show the real distinction between the persons
against the Modalists they sometimes made use of expressions tainted with
Subordinationism, and when they were intent on safeguarding the unity of God
they sometimes weakened the distinction between the persons. Theologians have at
all times carefully distinguished between the documents of faith proposed by the
Church, in which tradition is found without any admixture of philosophical
theory, and the writings of the Fathers which were more or less exact in their
use of abstract and philosophical terminology.

The faith of the early Church about the Trinity was expressed chiefly in
three ways: 1. in the manner of baptizing, 2. in the various Creeds, 3. in the
doxologies.

1. Baptism was conferred by a triple immersion and with the invocation of the
three divine persons. The manner of baptizing is given in the Didache (VII, I
ff.): "Baptize in this manner: after you have said all these things,
baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost with
living water. Pour water on the head three times in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." The same instruction is found in
Tertullian, writing against Praxeas.[101] Praxeas was a Patripassian, admitting
the existence of only one person, the Father, who had become incarnate. In his
reply to Praxeas, Tertullian wrote: "We immerse not once but three times at
each of the names and for each of the persons." Further, the sign of the
cross expresses three mysteries: the Trinity, the Incarnation, when the hand
descends to the breast at the words "and of the Son," and the
Redemption by the form of the cross.

2. The faith of the Church in the Trinity is expressed in various creeds. St.
Irenaeus tells us that in the second century the catechumens before they were
baptized read or recited a certain rule of faith or profession of faith in the
Trinity, which declared, "In one God, the almighty Father, who made heaven
and earth and sea, and all that are in them; and in Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Ghost, who by the prophets
preached the ordinances of God."[102] This belief was developed in later
creeds which can be found in Denzinger.[103]

3. The faith of the primitive Church in the Trinity is also enunciated in the
doxologies, which were in use from the earliest times. Many of them are found in
the epistles of St. Paul, who in the beginning or at the conclusion invokes and
glorifies the three persons of the Trinity.[104]

Later, we read in the Acts of the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, the disciple of
St. John, that at his execution St. Polycarp exclaimed: "Lord God almighty,
Father of Thy blessed and beloved Son Jesus Christ, I bless Thee,... I glorify
Thee through the heavenly and eternal high priest Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son,
through whom there is to Thee with Him and the Holy Ghost glory now and in
future ages. Amen."[105]

As early as the second century the Church used the lesser doxology,
"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost," still
recited in the Divine Office at the end of each psalm, and the greater doxology,
"Glory to God in the highest," in which the Church's faith in the
Trinity is expressed in greater detail. In the greater doxology we have an
example of that sublime contemplation which assuredly will dispose us to an
intimate union with the Blessed Trinity no less than many scholastic treatises
on the Trinity. Often when celebrating Mass the priest recites this doxology in
a mechanical manner as something prescribed by the rubrics. It is, however, an
instance of profound contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity of great
antiquity, for Pope St. Telesphorus (128-39) commanded that the Gloria be
recited on the feast of the Nativity of our Lord.[106]

The greater doxology begins with the song of the angels, "Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will"; then the one God
is adored, "We adore Thee, we glorify Thee"; the in we adore,
"God the Father almighty," our "Lord Jesus Christ, the
only-begotten Son; O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father," and finally
the Holy Ghost, "together with the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the
Father. Amen."

Many contemplative minds have not found a more beautiful expression of this
mystery, and yet it is often recited mechanically as something already well
known and worthy of no further consideration or contemplation. The result is a
kind of materialization of divine worship. The great antiquity of this greater
doxology shows how vivid was the early Christian's faith in the Trinity, even
though he spoke rather inexactly when he treated of the mystery in abstract and
philosophical language.

In spite of some inexact expressions, the teaching of the ante-Nicene Fathers
can easily be reconciled with the later definitions of the Council of Nicaea. At
all times they held fast to the doctrine expressed in the earliest creeds
concerning one God in three persons. Among the apostolic Fathers, St. Clement of
Rome in his two letters to the Corinthians[107] says that the Father is the
Creator, the Son is more excellent than the angels and is God Himself, and that
the Holy Ghost spoke through the prophets. We find like expressions in the
epistles of St. Ignatius Martyr to the Ephesians and to the Magnesians.[108] All
the Fathers believed in one God in three persons, and those Fathers who opposed
Modalism clearly asserted the real distinction between the persons. Thus St.
Hippolytus,[109] wrote: "It is necessary that we confess that the Father is
God almighty, and Jesus Christ the Son of God, God made man, and the Holy Ghost,
and these are really three."

Tertullian (213-25)[110] asserts the unity of substance no less clearly than
the Trinity of persons. He says: "We should guard the sacredness of the
economy (i. e., the sacred doctrine) which teaches that there is unity and
trinity, three directing, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Three,
however, not in status but in degree... of one substance and one power, for it
is one God from whom these degrees, these forms and species, in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, are derived." It was difficult
to find the proper abstract terms; the words "degree, form, species"
are quite inadequate to express abstractly the distinction between the persons.

In asserting the distinction between the persons, the ante-Nicene Fathers
generally avoided the language of the Subordinationists. Some, however, like
Origen (202-54), leaned somewhat to Subordinationism, saying that the Son was in
some manner inferior to the Father, and the Holy Ghost was inferior to the
Son.[111] Misled by his philosophy, Origen seems to have come under the
influence of Philo, and in his attempt to confute the Modalists he made use of
inaccurate expressions and merited the criticism of later writers.[112]

Similarly St. Dionysius of Alexandria, Origen's disciple, fought Modalism
with such zeal that some thought he had fallen into Subordinationism, but in his
Apologia addressed to the Supreme Pontiff he stated his position more clearly.
On other occasions these Fathers taught that the Son was begotten and not made:
Origen speaks of the Son as eternal and homoousios, consubstantial with the
Father.[113] They did not, however, at all times avoid the use of Neoplatonic
expressions which implied a necessary emanation and some subordination,
something between eternal generation in equality of nature and free creation out
of nothing. Therefore Pope St. Dionysius in 260, condemning the Modalists and
Subordinationists, wrote: "Neither is the admirable and divine unity to be
divided into three divinities, nor by the language of division is the dignity
and supreme greatness of the Lord to be diminished."[114]

Post-Nicene Testimonies

In 325 the Council of Nicaea defended the true tradition against Arius, who
taught that the Father alone was truly God, that the Word was the most excellent
of creatures, created in time out of nothing, and that the Holy Ghost was also a
creature, inferior to the Son. After long discussion it was defined that the
Word was consubstantial with the Father, homousion: "We believe in one God
the Father almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible. And in one
Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, that
is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true
God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, as the Greeks say,
homousion, by whom all things were made. And in the Holy Ghost."[115]

After this condemnation the heretics tried to cover up their error by
teaching that the Son was not properly homousion or consubstantial with the
Father, that is, of the same essence, but that He was similar in nature, or
homoiousion. Such was the teaching of the Semi-Arians; the Acacians said the Son
was homoion, that is, similar with regard to form and accidents. These teachings
were refuted by St. Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, and by St.
Athanasius.[116]

Note on the evolution of dogma or the progressive understanding of dogma.

The definition of the Council of Nicaea on the consubstantiality of the Word
is clearly nothing more than an explanation or more explicit statement of the
proposition contained in the prologue of St. John's Gospel: "The Word was
God." The consubstantiality is not arrived at by an objectively illative
process which deduces a new truth from another, as, for example, when we
conclude that man is free from the fact that he is rational. To arrive at the
knowledge of this consubstantiality an explicative process is sufficient, or at
the most a subjectively illative process, by which the mind proceeds to the
deduction of a new truth. By the simple explicative process the second statement
is shown to be equivalent to an earlier simpler proposition.

The explicative process is most easy: God is one, but the indivisible and
infinite divine nature cannot be multiplied. This monotheism is manifestly based
on faith, for we read, "Wear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord"
(Deut. 6:4); "See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God beside
Me" (Deut. 32:39); "And Jesus answered him:... the Lord thy God is one
God" (Mark 12:29); "We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and
that there is no God but one" (I Cor. 8:4).

On the supposition of monotheism, we read further, "And the Word was
God, " or, the Word, the only-begotten Son of God, is God, like the Father.
Therefore the Father and the Son are consubstantial, that is, they are not
distinct with regard to essence and substance but only by reason of paternity
and filiation, which is the opposition of relation. Again, Jesus said, "I
am the truth and the life." This process does not attain to a new truth
deduced from that revealed truth, "And the Word was God, " but it
explains it on the supposition that monotheism is established. Therefore, in
spite of what has been said by recent students, the divine consubstantiality is
not a theological conclusion sanctioned by definition.

St. Athanasius, from another approach, proves the consubstantiality by a
proper illative process from two revealed premises.[117] St. Athanasius
declared: Only God deifies, or makes divine by participation. But the Word of
God deifies us. Therefore He is God, and consequently homousios with the Father,
from whom He proceeds not by creation but by generation in the identity of
nature.

Father Marin Sola teaches: "The consubstantiality defined by the Council
of Nicaea was a revealed truth. But where and how was it revealed? It was
revealed in other truths, which contained it implicitly and from which it was
deduced by reasoning. These other truths are: 1. Jesus Christ is truly the Son
of God; 2. in God there is simple unity and there can be no division of
substance."[118]

At this point we depart from Sola and Batiffol, holding that
consubstantiality is not really a theological conclusion but a truth of faith
more explicitly stated.

Having posited the revealed proposition, "The Word was God, " no
objectively illative process is required to understand consubstantiality. This
consubstantiality does not express a new truth, but the same truth in a more
explicit manner, as when we proceed from the nominal definition of man to the
real and explicit definition, namely, man is a rational animal. If certain
theologians, like Bellarmine,[119] say that consubstantiality is deduced, it is
deduced by the explicative process, or perhaps, as we have said, by an illative
process from two premises already revealed. Here we must also keep in mind the
transition from concrete knowledge to abstract knowledge. Abstract knowledge is
already contained implicitly, and not only virtually, in the concrete knowledge
of the same thing, and the transition is made without any objectively illative
process.

In this way St. Athanasius argued to prove the divinity of the Holy Ghost
against the Arians and the Macedonians: inasmuch as the Holy Ghost sanctifies
us, that is, deifies us by a participation in the deity. Furthermore, St.
Athanasius said: "The Father begets necessarily and at the same time
freely; and He does not create necessarily but freely." In explanation he
said that the Father necessarily and freely loves Himself but not as a matter of
choice. It follows that in God generation is eternal since God was always the
Father, and similarly spiration is eternal, otherwise neither the Son nor the
Holy Ghost would be God, because they would not then be eternal. In refuting the
Arians, St. Athanasius concluded: "Nothing created can be found in the
Trinity, since it is entirely one God."[120] After the Nicene Council many
other councils confirmed this teaching against the Macedonians, who had denied
the divinity of the Holy Ghost, particularly the Fourth Council of Rome (380)
and the Council of Constantinople, which expressly defined that the Holy Ghost
was God. With this we conclude the testimony of tradition, for after the Nicene
Council the Church clearly taught the mystery of one God in three distinct
persons.

6. St. Augustine And St. Thomas On The Trinity

In his commentaries on the Gospel of St. Matthew and that of St. John and on
the epistles of St. Paul, St. Thomas examined all the texts of the New Testament
in which the Holy Trinity is mentioned explicitly or implicitly. In his
consideration of this subject, he clearly understood how much St. Augustine was
able to contribute toward the understanding of these texts. His debt to St.
Augustine will become evident from a comparison of the works of St. Augustine
with the writings of the Greek Fathers.

1. The method of the Greek Fathers. In their refutation of Sabellius, who had
denied the real distinction between the divine persons, and of Arius and
Macedonius, who had denied the divinity either of the Son or of the Holy Ghost,
the Greek Fathers began with the affirmation of the three persons, as found in
Sacred Scripture, and then they tried to show that this Trinity of persons could
be reconciled with the unity of nature by reason of the consubstantiality of the
persons. This idea of consubstantiality was more and more explicitly stated and
then defined in the Council of Nicaea.[121]

Thus the Greek Fathers, especially St. Athanasius, showed that, according to
revelation, the Father begets the Son by communicating to Him not only the
participation of His nature but His whole nature, and from this it followed that
the Son was consubstantial with the Father and true God from true God. This also
explained how the incarnate Son of God was able to redeem us from the servitude
of sin, because His merits had infinite value.[122] In the same way the Greek
Fathers showed that according to Sacred Scripture the Holy Ghost, proceeding
from the Father and the Son, was God and therefore was able to sanctify our
souls. Indeed these processions were looked upon as donations and communications
rather than as operations of the divine intellect and will: the Father, in
begetting the Son, gave Him His nature. Similarly, the Father and the Son gave
or communicated the divine nature to the Holy Ghost, who proceeded from them.
But in this concept, the manner in which the first and second processions took
place remained inscrutable.[123] In their explanations of this mystery, the
Greek Fathers followed the order of the Apostles' Creed, in which the Father is
called the Creator, the Son the Savior, and the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier. The
explanations proposed by the Greek Fathers contained, it must be said, many
obscurities.

2. The difficulties of the Greek Fathers. Why are there two processions and
only two? How does the first differ from the second, and why is the first
procession called generation? In other words, why is the Son of God
only-begotten, and why does the Holy Ghost, although not begotten, receive the
whole divine nature?

One other doubt arises: Why, in the Apostles' Creed, is the Father alone
called the Creator, whereas in the prologue of St. John's Gospel and in the
epistles of St. Paul all things are said to have been made by the Word? The
creative omnipotence is an attribute of the divine nature and therefore it is
something common to the divine nature and pertains to the three divine persons.
The Greek Fathers did not explain in what sense the Father alone is called the
Creator in the Creed.

To solve this difficulty, St. Augustine and his successors adopted the theory
of appropriation, which is found only implicitly in the Greek Fathers. The
Latins explained that the Father is called the Creator, not because He alone
created, but by appropriation, that is, by a similitude of propriety, for
"the creative power contains the idea of principle and therefore has a
resemblance with the heavenly Father, who is the principle in the
divinity."[124] In the same way wisdom has a resemblance with the Son
inasmuch as He is the Word.

3. St. Augustine's solution of these difficulties. To arrive at a solution of
these problems, St. Augustine labored long in the writing of his great work, De
Trinitate, in fifteen books; the first seven books explain the biblical texts
referring to the Trinity, and the other eight treat of the mystery
speculatively, proposing analogies taken from the human soul, inasmuch as the
word of the mind proceeds from it by intellection as well as love, which is the
inclination or weight of the soul drawing it to the good as loved. St. Augustine
laid great emphasis on the fact that according to the Fourth Gospel the Son
proceeds from the Father as the Word; "And the Word was with God and the
Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by
Him... ."

The Son, who is called only-begotten (v. 18), proceeds therefore from the
Father as the Word, not as the Word produced and delivered exteriorly, but as
the Word of the divine mind, for it is said, "The Word was with God, and
the Word was God." The Word, then, is God, not the supreme creature, and
"all things were made by Him." In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we read,
"Who being the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance[of
God the Father], and upholding all things by the word of His power."

St. Augustine explains the intimate manner of the generation of the eternal
and only-begotten Son, while the Greek Fathers said that the manner of His
begetting was inscrutable. Explaining the prologue of St. John's Gospel, St.
Augustine showed that the Father from eternity begets His Son by an intellectual
act just as our mind conceives the mental word: in the soul we find the mind,
knowledge, and love; in the soul, which is the image of the Trinity, there are
memory, intelligence (the act of intellection), and the will. This helps us to
understand the fecundity of the divine nature.[125]

But while our word is only an accident of our minds, remaining very imperfect
and limited, and multiple to express the diverse nature of things, the divine
Word is something substantial, most perfect, unique, perfectly expressing the
divine nature and all that it contains. It is therefore truly "light of
light, God of God, true God of true God." Thus, by the analogy of our
intellectual word, by its similarity and dissimilarity, the intimate manner of
the first procession is explained. The manner of the second procession, which
appears as the procession of love, is also explained. From our souls, which
according to the Scriptures are created in the likeness of God, proceeds not
only the word but also love. The human mind not only conceives the true-good but
also loves it. If therefore the only-begotten Son proceeds from the Father as
the mental Word, the Holy Ghost is to be considered as proceeding from them as
love.

Thus it is that there are in God two processions and only two, and the manner
of each is explained. St. Augustine, however, did not understand why the first
procession is called generation. St. Thomas explains: "The Word proceeds by
intellectual action, which is a vital operation, conjoined to the principle, and
after the manner of a likeness, because the intellectual concept is an image of
the thing understood."[126] The concept of our minds, however, does not
deserve the name of generation, because in us the concept is only an accident of
our minds, whereas in God the Word is substantial inasmuch as intellection in
God is subsisting being. Thus the Father, in producing the Word, begets a Son
like to Himself, and does not produce an accidental mental word.

St. Thomas further perfected the doctrine of St. Augustine by showing why the
procession of love should not be called generation: "the will is in act,
not because some likeness of the thing willed is in the will, but because the
will has a certain inclination toward the thing willed."[127] In St.
Augustine's words, "My love is my weight."

In the doctrine proposed by St. Augustine we also find an explanation of why
the Holy Ghost proceeds not from the Father alone, but also from the Son,
because in our souls love proceeds not only from the soul itself but from the
knowledge of the true-good, since nothing is loved unless it is also known.

From this it appears that in his thinking about the Trinity, St. Augustine
did not begin with the three persons as did the Greek Fathers but rather with
the unity of the divine nature, which was already demonstrated by reason, just
as he began with the soul itself in his demonstration of its faculties and
superior operations.

In these two approaches opposing difficulties arise: in the Greek approach it
is difficult to safeguard the unity of nature, while in the Augustinian
approach, starting with the unity of nature, it is difficult to safeguard the
distinction between the persons and those things which are proper or
appropriated to the persons. It is, after all, a transcendent and indemonstrable
mystery. But by these two approaches, the first of which is the more concrete
and the second is more abstract, the mystery is contemplated under two aspects.
And finally, the abstract principles serve to advance a better understanding of
what is known beforehand in a concrete manner.

St. Augustine and his followers easily explained what the Greek Fathers were
not able to show: why the Father alone is not the Creator, but also the Son and
the Holy Ghost, because the creative power is a property of the divine nature,
common to the three persons. Gradually was unfolded the meaning of the
traditional principle: the three persons are one principle in the operations
<ad extra>. This principle was formulated in the condemnations by Pope
Damasus in 380, and later councils defined it more accurately.[128] Great
progress was thus made in the elucidation of this dogma.

When, in the Apostles' Creed, only the Father is called the Creator, the
predication is not proper and exclusive; it is rather by a kind of
appropriation, inasmuch as the creative power contains the notion of principle
<ad extra> just as the Father is the principle <ad intra.> In the
same way, wisdom has a resemblance with the Word, and our sanctification has a
resemblance to the Holy Ghost, since it proceeds from God's love for us, and
thus the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of love or personal love.

Therefore, while consubstantiality was the terminus toward which the Greek
Fathers tended, beginning with the three persons, whose names are found in
Scripture, St. Augustine, on the other hand, began with the unity of the divine
nature to arrive at the three persons, just as he began with the unity of the
soul to determine its superior operations and the various manifestations of its
life.

In the Augustinian doctrine, gradually that principle which illumines the
whole treatise on the Trinity and was formulated by the Council of Florence in
1441, came to light, "In God all things are one and the same unless there
is opposition of relation, " that is, where there is no relative opposition
between the persons, all things are one and the same because the divine nature
is numerically one with all its attributes.[129]

4. The difficulties of the Augustinian teaching solved by St. Thomas. Two
difficulties remained in the Augustinian doctrine. The first arose from the fact
that the generation of the Word takes place after the manner of intellection;
but the three divine persons have intellect; therefore the three divine persons
ought to beget, and then there would be a fourth person, and so on to infinity.
This difficulty is solved by the distinction between intellection and the
expression of the notional idea inasmuch as the three persons all have
intelligence but only the Father expresses the intellection. He alone expresses
because the Word is adequate and the most perfect expression of the divine
nature and no other Word need be enunciated. Just as in a classroom while the
teacher is teaching, both he and the pupils understand, but the teacher alone
enunciates. Similarly a difficult question may be proposed to a number of
persons; then one discovers and expresses the correct solution, while all the
others immediately understand it. This distinction between intellection and
enunciation is offered by St. Thomas.[130]

The second difficulty is similar: the second procession takes place after the
manner of love; but the three persons love; therefore the three persons ought to
spirate another person, and so on to infinity.

The solution of this difficulty depends on the distinction between essential
love, which is common to the three persons, and notional love, which is active
spiration and corresponds to the enunciation of the Word. It is called notional
because it denotes the third person. Thus the three persons all love, but only
the first two spirate. We have then three kinds of love in God: essential,
notional, and personal. Personal love is the Holy Ghost Himself, who is the
terminus of active spiration just as the Word is the terminus of generation and
enunciation.[131] According to a rather remote analogy: a saintly preacher loves
God and inspires his audience with this love, and the hearers also love God but
they do not inspire others with this love. These two distinctions are not
explicitly found in St. Augustine, but after his time great progress was made in
elucidating the traditional doctrine of the Trinity.

5. The preference of St. Augustine's doctrine over that of the Greek Fathers.

The Augustinian teaching prevailed for three reasons.

1. Because by beginning with the unity of the divine nature, St. Augustine
began methodically with what was better known to us. The divine nature was
already demonstrated by reason, and from this he proceeded to the supernatural
mystery of the Trinity. When the Greek Fathers were writing, the treatise on the
one God had not yet been set up as the way to an understanding of the Trinity.

2. Because the Augustinian approach solved those difficulties remaining in
the Greek concept, explaining the number and character of the processions after
the manner of intellection and love. It also explained the <Filioque>,
inasmuch as love presupposes intellection; and finally it explained the
distinction between the natural order, of which God as one and the Creator is
the efficient principle, and the supernatural order, whose supreme mystery is
the divine processions within God.

3. Because whatever difficulties still remained were attributable not to
deficiencies of method but to the sublimity of the mystery. Moreover, the
Augustinian concept offered whatever was positive in the Greek concept,
perfecting it, and thus itself was more perfect. The Greek Fathers began with
the concrete; the Latin Fathers and theologians arrived at a more abstract
consideration and at the knowledge of principles which cast light both on the
whole treatise and on those things known concretely in the beginning.

6. The theory of Richard of St. Victor.[132] This theory is dominated by the
Victorine voluntarism, according to which the good is prior and more important
than being, and the will and love are more important than the intellect.
According to this concept, God would better be defined as the supreme Good
rather than as subsisting Being. To which St. Thomas replied that that which
first comes to the attention of our intellect is being, and that the notion of
good presupposes the more universal and simpler concept of being; good is
nothing more than the plenitude of being, desired because it is perfective.[133]
We should not be surprised to see these two tendencies among philosophers and
theologians, the primacy of being and intellect, and the primacy of good and
love, nor is it surprising that two theories should have been proposed by Latin
theologians about the Trinity. We will briefly consider here Richard's theory
because it was adopted in some form by Alexander of Hales and St. Bonaventure,
and is quoted by St. Thomas.[134] Indeed, St. Thomas, developed his own doctrine
by correcting the theory of Richard of St. Victor, which should therefore be
explained first.

Richard, like the Greeks, first considered in God the person and then the
nature. He demonstrated the existence of a personal God, possessing all
perfections, especially the supreme perfection, which for Richard was the love
of benevolence and friendship, or charity.

Charity, however, declared Richard, is not the love of oneself, but the love
of friendship, the love of another person, according to the classical passage
from St. Gregory the Great: "Charity cannot exist unless there are two
persons, for no one can properly be said to have charity toward
himself."[135] Hence Richard concluded: "It is fitting that love
should tend toward another in order that it be charity. Where there is not a
plurality of persons, charity cannot be said to be present."[136] In God,
according to Richard, love (good diffusive of itself) begets a second beloved
person, without whom the love of friendship cannot come into being. The most
perfect love of friendship gives to the other not only something belonging to
the lover but the whole nature of the lover. The love of the lover gives
whatever it can.

Finally, Richard in order to prove that the most perfect charity, such as is
found in God, is most pure without any love of concupiscence, concluded that it
not only tolerates but most freely desires a third person, equally beloved by
the other persons. When envy appears sometimes in human friendship, it is a sign
that the love is not pure. Hence there are in God three persons, who love one
another equally without any selfish love or self-interest, and the three loves
are identified with subsisting love itself, which is the definition of God
Himself.

Objection. But the love of the Holy Ghost is not freely given as is the love
of the Father and the Son.

Reply. Richard's reply was that, by reason of His supreme benevolence, the
Holy Ghost wishes rather to receive than to give in order that what is more
glorious might be attributed to the other two persons.

Such is the brief outline of this theory by which Richard wished to
demonstrate the mystery of the Trinity from the fact that God is the most
perfect personal love.

Criticism.[137] St. Thomas replied that the theory does not demonstrate that
God is infinitely fecund ad intra, for the love of the most perfect person does
not require the association of another person for his happiness. Further, what
becomes of the Word of God in Richard's theory? It seems to disappear, since the
first procession is by love and not by intellection.[138] For Richard, as for
the Greeks, the Word was something spoken to another person rather than a mental
concept of a person. In Richard's mind the Father speaks, the Son is the
utterance, and the Holy Ghost hears. Thus the intimate life of God is an
intimate conversation, and the same is intellection in the three persons.
Briefly, Richard does not understand by the Word or by His production a formal
mode of divine generation, for he explains divine generation not by the analogy
of intellection but of love.

Hence another objection arises: Richard omits the concept of intellection,
but nothing can be loved unless it is known beforehand. As we see from his
writings, Richard responded to this objection on the basis of his metaphysical
and psychological principles.

1. Metaphysically speaking, according to Richard, the good is superior to
being and diffusive of itself by love, as Plato and the Neoplatonists taught.
According to the Neoplatonists, the first <<hypostasis>> is the
one-good, which by its own diffusiveness and by love generates the second
<<hypostasis>>, intelligence, whose object is being, something
inferior to the supreme Good.

2. Psychologically speaking, Richard contended that the highest vital
activity is not immobile intellection, which is quiescent in itself, but love,
especially the love of friendship, which is diffusive of itself. For Richard
knowledge was subordinate to love, as a previous condition for a higher
perfection. This opinion is continued in Scotism, which is a form of
voluntarism. For St. Thomas, on the other hand, the dignity of love is derived
from the dignity of knowledge by which love is directed, and the heavenly
beatitude is constituted formally by the vision of God. This vision of God is
necessarily followed, as by its complement, by the love of God above all things.

Another objection against Richard's theory arises from the difficulty of
safeguarding the unity of the divine nature.[139] It is the same difficulty as
beset the Greeks; like the Greeks, Richard began with the notion of divine
person rather than with the notion of the divine nature. Therefore in his mind
the divine nature was rather the act of love, rather a dynamic unity than a
static entity. For Richard the same love was identical in the three divine
persons, although some special property of this love is found in each person.
The matter is left in mystery. The main criticism of Richard's theory is that he
seems to lose sight of the teaching of St. John's Gospel, that the Son of God
proceeds as the Word, that is, after the manner of intellection.

Alexander of Hales made some improvements on Richard's theory.[140] Alexander
was more intent on the metaphysical aspect of the problem; he considered the
principle that good is diffusive of itself, rather than the psychological
aspect, that the love of charity requires several persons. Thus Alexander and
St. Bonaventure, who followed him, looked on the divine processions as the
fecundity of the infinite living being, relying on the axiom that good is
diffusive of itself, and the higher the nature the more intimate and complete
will be this diffusion. But the highest kind of diffusion is the communication
of ideas and of love, as when God makes creatures in His own likeness and loves
them, and also the communication of His entire divine nature. Whereas we, the
adopted sons of God, have received only the participation of the divine nature,
the only-begotten Son has received the entire divine nature without any division
or multiplication; and this is the supreme diffusion and fecundity of the
supreme Good.

As we shall see, this concept was retained by St. Thomas, but a part of
Alexander's theory was discarded by him. Alexander had taught,[141] "In God
to beget after the manner of intellection is hardly the same as to
understand." After lengthy examination, under the title, "Thether
begetting is the same as intellection in God, " St. Thomas assigns
supporting reasons: "God lives the noblest kind of life, which is
intellection"; "Intellection is nothing else than generating a species
within oneself." These arguments had already been presented by St.
Augustine and St. Anselm, and St. Thomas perfected them.

Yet Alexander concluded: "Begetting in God is not the same as
intellection."[142] For this he gives two reasons: 1. "No one begets
himself, and yet he understands himself; the Son of God understands but does not
beget. Therefore in God begetting is not the same as intellection." St.
Thomas replied that begetting is the same as intellectual enunciation. 2.
Begetting implies the duality of the begetter and the begotten, but such is not
the case in intellection, since anyone can understand himself without this
duality. A study of this theory reminds us of Leibnitz's dictum: "In
general, systems are correct in what they affirm and false in what they
deny." Why? Because reality is more solid than the systems; especially is
this true of the supreme reality.

Richard's theory was also accepted by Peter Bles,[143] by William of Auxerre,[144]
and partly by St. Bonaventure,[145] but it was refuted by St. Thomas.[146]

St. Bonaventure's theory is mixed because it proceeds from two sources, from
Peter Lombard, who gave St. Augustine's doctrine on the Word, and from Richard
of St. Victor through Alexander of Hales. Hence we find a difference between St.
Bonaventure and St. Thomas.[147] The principal difference seems to be this: for
St. Thomas, God is pure act, in the sense of pure actuality; for St.
Bonaventure, God is pure activity or the supreme activity. For St. Bonaventure,
therefore, the supreme unity is active, rather dynamic than static, and goodness
especially is essentially diffusive of itself. Therefore the supreme active
unity is not only absolute but it also implies a certain relation to something
else by reason of the notion of diffusion or fecundity of a living being.

According to this principle, St. Bonaventure, like Alexander, conceived the
first procession as "the fecundity of the divine nature," and the
second procession as "the fecundity of the will."[148] St. Bonaventure
looked on the Second Person rather as the Son of God than as the Word of God,
and he considered the Word, or Logos, mentioned by St. John in his prologue, as
a comparison to help us understand who the Son of God is.[149] With Alexander,
St. Bonaventure conceded that there must be begetting in God since every nature
is communicable and every living being begets specifically like itself. Such
fecundity is a noble quality or perfection which must be attributed to God. St.
Bonaventure pointed out that there is a notable difference between divine and
human generation. In divine generation alone, the communicated nature remains
numerically the same with the first nature because it is infinite and cannot be
divided. In human generation, man begets in order to preserve the species after
the death of the begetter; thus man begets both because of his fecundity and his
need.

God the Father almighty begets only because of His fecundity. St.
Bonaventure's theory joins the classic theory of St. Augustine with Richard's
theory as modified by Alexander of Hales. It is a dynamic concept in which the
concept of the good is dominant; the theory is greatly influenced by Dionysius'
principle: good is diffusive of itself. This principle, it should be noted,
serves to illustrate the fitness of creation, but not that of the Incarnation or
of the Holy Eucharist. In all these mysteries God diffuses His goodness.

The question arises whether St. Thomas retained the principle that good is
diffusive of itself. In making use of this principle St. Thomas distinguished
between the end and the agent. "Good," he said, "is said to be
diffusive of itself in the sense that the end is said to move or
elicit."[150]

Every agent acts on account of an end, and therefore the good is first of all
diffusive of itself as an end, and then effectively it is diffusive through the
mediation of the agent. "It pertains to the idea of the good," says
St. Thomas,[151] "that it communicate itself to others; and it pertains to
the idea of the supreme good that it communicate itself in the highest way to
the creature." This takes place ad extra in the Incarnation. Again, under
the question: "Whether God wills other things besides Himself, " St.
Thomas taught: "The natural thing... has a natural inclination to diffuse
its own good to others as much as is possible. Hence we see that every agent, so
far as it is in act and perfect, makes something like itself... . Much more it
belongs to the divine will to communicate its own good to others by means of a
likeness as far as is possible."[152] In the following article, against the
Neoplatonists, he says that the divine will most freely wills other things
besides itself, "Since nothing accrues to the divine goodness from
creatures." St. Thomas also points out the fitness of the Holy Eucharist,
which is the sacrament of love.[153]

Thus we see that St. Thomas retains the principle of Dionysius so often
quoted by Alexander of Hales and St. Bonaventure, although sometimes he proposes
it differently in the questions on the Trinity, where the good is not properly
speaking the final cause, nor the efficient cause, but the principle. In the
<Contra Gentes> in the famous eleventh chapter, he offers this principle
to explain the divine generation of the Word: "By how much a nature is
higher, by that much what emanates from it is more intimate." Thus, from
fire is generated, from the plant another plant, and a vital operation is the
more vital the more it is immanent, as, for example, sensation, and intellection
is still higher since from it proceeds the word. "That which proceeds ad
extra is properly diverse from that from which it proceeds; but that which
proceeds ad intra by the process of intellection is not properly diverse, for
the more perfectly it proceeds the more it will be one with that from which it
proceeds. Thus the Word of God proceeding from the Father, proceeds from Him
without any numerical diversity of nature."[154] Even if there had been no
creation, the principle, good is diffusive of itself, would be verified in God,
and so the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity confirms the dogma of a free
creation, in no way necessary.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Thomists in explaining the teaching
of St. Thomas frequently make use of that principle so often invoked by St.
Bonaventure, that the good is essentially diffusive of itself; although on this
point there is some difference between the two doctors. In his treatise on the
Trinity, Scheeben also makes use of this principle.

The Division Of St. Thomas' Treatise On The Trinity

IN the prologue (question 27), St. Thomas lays down the order for the whole
treatise and the fitness of his distribution of the matter is immediately
apparent. He explains: "Since the divine persons are distinguished by the
relations of origin (inasmuch as the Son is denominated by His origin from the
Father, and the Holy Ghost by His origin from the Spirators), we shall follow
the order indicated by the matter itself when we first consider origin or
procession, secondly the relations of origin, and thirdly the divine
persons."

In common: the idea of person, the plurality of persons, the similarities and
dissimilarities of the persons, and their knowability by us.

Individually: the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Of the persons comparatively: with regard to their essence, their properties
and relations, their notional acts (generation and active spiration); the
comparison of the persons with one another with regard to their similarity and
equality and their respective missions.

St. Thomas, we see, proceeds according to the genetic method, from that which
is better known to that which is less known. For in the Scriptures we read of
processions, indicated by the name of the Son, proceeding from the Father, and
of the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the spirators, but we do not find the word
"person," only the personal nouns, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In
this way St. Thomas gradually shows that the relations are founded in the
processions (for example, filiation is based on passive generation), and that
the persons are constituted by subsisting relations. Beginning with what is
explicitly revealed, the processions, he finds something that is implicitly
revealed and gradually progresses from the indistinct knowledge of subsisting
relations and related persons to a defined and distinct idea. These are, as we
shall see, explicative processes, or at least subjectively illative, and not
objectively illative processes, except in those instances where a new truth is
deduced. In general in these first questions the same truth, which is formally
revealed, is extensively explained and unfolded.[155]

In the division of this treatise it should be noted that the first two parts
are discussed in Questions 27 and 28: the third part, treating of the divine
persons, is treated in Questions 29 to 43.

This third part is subdivided into two parts:

1. The persons considered absolutely: a) in common; b) individually.

2. The persons considered comparatively: a) with regard to their essence; b)
their properties; c) their notional acts (active generation and active
spiration); d) their equality, similarity, and missions.

At first sight it will appear that in Questions 39, 40, 41, St. Thomas seems
to begin the treatise anew, treating of the persons in common with regard to
their essence, properties, and notional acts; he seems to be repeating what was
already said in Questions 27, 28, and 29, about the processions, the relations
of origin, and the persons in common.

He is not, however, repeating himself; for what he said earlier in an
analytical exposition he explains later in a synthetical exposition, comparing
one truth with another and penetrating more profoundly into the matter of the
treatise. Many of St. Thomas' commentators, because of the similarity of the
matter treated, explain in their commentary on Question 27 the doctrine offered
by St. Thomas in Question 39. They follow this procedure for the sake of clarity
and brevity, but the more profound and preferable presentation, we think, is
that given by St. Thomas.

CHAPTER I: QUESTION 27 THE PROCESSION OF THE DIVINE PERSONS

This question contains five articles: 1. whether there is a procession in
God; 2. whether any procession in God can be called generation, and what is the
intellectual manner of this generation; 3. whether besides generation another
procession is found in God; 4. whether this other procession can be called
generation (the answer will be in the negative); 5. whether there are more than
two processions in God.

In general these five articles are simple explanations of the dogma by a
conceptual analysis of the terms of the revealed propositions before any new
truths are deduced, that is, before any theological conclusions are drawn. Some
students have tried to see in these treatises an illative process where there is
only an explicative process which is merely the progressive understanding of one
and the same revealed truth.

First Article: Whether There Is Any Procession In God

State of the question. The question is proposed in the form of three
difficulties. 1. It appears that there are no processions in God because a
procession implies motion without; but in God there is no motion, since He is
the prime immovable mover and pure act. 2. He who proceeds differs from Him from
whom He proceeds, but in God there can be no such difference. 3. To proceed from
another is to depend upon another, but this is repugnant to the idea of a first
principle. If the Son depends upon the Father, He is not God. Such are the
principal difficulties.[156]

Reply. In God the processions are not by local motion, nor by transitive
action, but by the intellectual emanation of an intelligible word from Him who
enunciates. At the end of the body of the article, St. Thomas says, "And
thus Catholic faith holds that there is a procession in God." From this
last line it is evident that we are concerned here with an explanation of faith
and not with a deduction of a theological conclusion.

Proof. It is clear from the Scriptures that it is of faith that there are
processions in God. In his argument St. Thomas quotes the words of our
Lord," or from God I proceeded" (John 8:42). In the <Contra
Gentes> St. Thomas quotes other texts: Jesus said, "The Spirit of truth,
who proceedeth from the Father" (John 15:26). Besides this, in the
Scriptures the Son of God is called "His own Son, " that is, of God
the Father (Rom. 8:32), and "the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of
the Father" (John 1:18). It is the Son who is truly "His own" who
proceeds from the Father and not the son who is only adopted. Again we read,
"The Father loveth the Son: and He hath given all things into His
hands" (John 3:35), and the only-begotten Son of the Father is called
"the Word, " by whom "all things were made,... and without Him
was made nothing that was made" (John 1:3; Heb. 1:1). From this it is clear
that the Son proceeds from the Father from all eternity.

This truth is explicitly contained in the creeds. In the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed we read: "Begotten of the Father, God of
God, light of light, true God of true God"; and of the Holy Ghost:
"who proceeds from the Father." In the Athanasian Creed: "The Son
is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but begotten; the Holy Ghost is
from the Father and the Son, not made, not created, not begotten, but
proceeding."

Procession (<ekporeusis, probole>) is the origin of one from another,
as light proceeds from the sun and a son from his father.

St. Athanasius[157] and St. Augustine[158] explained that the imperfections
inherent in human generation are not found in the divine processions. In the
divine processions, for example, there is no diversity of nature (the nature
remains numerically the same) but only a diversity of persons according to the
opposition of relation.

In the body of the article, St. Thomas intended only to explain this truth of
faith by a conceptual analysis of the word "procession, " discarding
at the same time any false interpretations. His process, therefore, is not
illative but explicative. This is clear from the first words of the paragraph,
in which he explains the idea of procession, as used by the Scriptures, and from
the following article, in which St. Thomas explains the idea of generation.

The body of the article has three parts.

1. Against Arius, it is shown that in God there is no procession of effect
from cause, otherwise it would follow, against the Scriptures, that neither the
Son nor the Holy Ghost would be God. The Scriptures declare of the Son,"
his is the true God, " (I John 5:20), and the same is said of the Holy
Ghost in I Cor. 6:19.

2. Against Sabellius, it is shown that in God procession is not understood as
though there were different effects flowing from one and the same person of the
Father: as though the Father were called the Son as incarnate and the Holy Ghost
in the sanctification of souls. This would be contrary to the Scriptures which
make it clear that the Son is not the Father, for example, "The Son cannot
do anything of Himself" (John 5:19). Furthermore, no one begets himself.

3. St. Thomas explains the root of these two errors: these heretics erred
because they understood procession as being <ad extra>. He then explains
that in God procession is ad intra. As often occurs in the body of the article,
the major is given after the minor. If the major were given before the minor,
this explicative process would be somewhat as follows:

Since God is above all things, those things which are predicated of God are
to be understood in their resemblance to intellectual and not corporeal
substances. But in corporeal substances procession is in the manner of action
<ad extra>, whereas in intellectual substances it is after the manner of
action ad intra, as the concept of a thing or the mental word proceeds from the
intellect. Therefore the procession predicated of God is procession ad intra,
like that of the intelligible word in him who enunciates. "And in this
manner Catholic faith understands procession in God" as opposed to Arius
and Sabellius.

This process therefore only explains the true idea of procession in God as it
is found in the Scriptures, excluding any false interpretations and giving the
analogy of the word which is indicated in the prologue of St. John's Gospel and
explained at great length by St. Augustine.[159]

We should note that many commentators, such as Billuart, prove from Question
33, article 4 ad 4, that there are processions in God from the fact that it is
of faith that there are several really distinct persons in God. Such was also
the method of the Greek Fathers.

The article should be read.

1. The doctrine is confirmed by the divine fecundity which, since it IS a
perfection without imperfection, cannot be denied to God. ("Shall not I
that make others to bring forth children, Myself bring forth, saith the Lord?
Shall I, that give generation to others, be barren, saith the Lord thy
God?" Isa. 66:9.)

2. The reply is also confirmed by the solution of the objections.

Reply to first objection. Procession would imply motion in God if it were
after the manner of transitive action, but not if it is immanent action, which
is in the predicament of quality and not of action.

Reply to second objection. Similarly there would be numerical diversity if
the procession were <ad extra>, as when by human generation the son
proceeds from the father with consequent multiplication of human nature. But
such is not the case with procession <ad intra>. As St. Thomas explains:
"That which proceeds <ad intra> by an intelligible process need not
be diverse; indeed the more perfect the procession the more that which proceeds
will be one with that from which it proceeds. It is clear that the more
profoundly a thing is understood the more intimate the intellectual concept will
be to him who understands and so much greater will also be the union of both.
For the intellect inasmuch as it understands in act will be united with what it
understands. Therefore, since the divine intellection is the acme of perfection,
as we said above in Question 14, a. 2, it follows necessarily that the divine
Word is perfectly united with Him from whom He proceeds, without any diversity,
" that is, without any numerical diversity so that there is only a
distinction of persons.[160]

This teaching is developed in the second chapter of the fourth book of the
<Contra Gentes>, in which St. Thomas illustrates this principle: The
higher any particular nature is the more anything that emanates from it will be
intimate with it. Thus St. Thomas preserves under another form Dionysius'
principle, so frequently enunciated by Alexander of Hales and St. Bonaventure:
"Good is essentially diffusive of itself, and the higher the nature is the
more fully and intimately it will be so." Good, however, is primarily
predicated of a final cause; but the Father is not properly the end or the
efficient cause of the Son. Therefore St. Thomas' formula is more acceptable
because it rises above both final and efficient causality, although the formula
about the diffusion of good could be understood as referring to things above the
order of causality.[161] This principle, however, is arrived at inductively.

Thus fire is generated from fire, a plant by another plant, an animal from
another animal in the manner of action <ad extra> and the numerical
multiplication of nature. But in the higher spheres, life is more and more
immanent, for sensation remains in the subject, intellection in the one who
understands, as does also the mental word. Human intellection, however, has its
beginning from without, that is, from sensible things. In a still higher sphere,
"The intellection of the angels does not proceed from something exterior,
but knows itself through itself. But the life of the angels does not attain to
the ultimate perfection for, whereas the angelic intellection is entirely
intrinsic to the subject, the intellectual concept or intention is not identical
with the subject's substance because intellection and being are not the
same." In order to know himself, the angel requires an accidental mental
word because the angel's substance is intelligible of itself in act although it
is not actually understood of itself in act. And further, the substance of the
angel as it is understood in act and represented in the accidental word is not
the angel's substance according to its physical being but only according to the
angel's intentional or representative being. The mental word of Michael is not
Michael himself because it is an accident and not his substance.

On the other hand, as we read in this chapter of the <Contra Gentes>,
"Since in God being and intellection are the same," He does not
require an accidental word to know Himself. But if from the divine
superabundance there is a Word, as we learn from revelation alone, then
"the being of the Word, interiorly conceived, is the same as the divine
intellection," God's being itself, not only according to His intellectual
being but according to His physical being. Thus the divine Word is not only God
as understood, but "true God," as we-learn from the Creed: "true
God of true God." Contrariwise the accidental word by which Michael the
archangel knows himself is indeed Michael according to his intellectual being
but not the actual Michael according to his physical being, because it is an
accident and not a substance[162]

Intellectual generation, therefore, when it is most perfect produces not only
an accidental mental word but also a substantial word, and it is therefore true
generation, because it communicates the entire nature of the generator, as we
shall see in article 2.

Our mental word can be called the offspring of our minds only metaphorically.
Such is the solution of the second objection: in God He who proceeds is not
different in nature from Him from whom He proceeds, but has a nature numerically
the same.

Reply to third objection. The third objection was that to proceed from
another was repugnant to God as the first principle. In reply we distinguish
"proceed" as above, namely, to proceed as something extraneous and
diverse, I concede; to proceed as something within and without numerical
diversity of nature, I deny. Thus the Son of God is God of God, light of light;
He is in some manner like the word in the mind of the artificer with relation to
some external artifact.

First doubt. Is it not at least virtually revealed and theologically certain
that in God procession is after the manner of an intelligible concept uttered by
an enunciator, and that the procession is intellectual?

We are not asking whether the Son of God is rightly called the Word of God,
for we know from the Prologue of St. John's Gospel, written under divine and
infallible inspiration, that it is of faith that the Son of God is the Word, and
that the Word is consubstantial with the Father, as was explicitly defined by
the Nicene Council. But we are asking whether these words of the Prologue
formally reveal, or at least virtually reveal, the formal manner of the first
procession, that is, by intellectual enunciation.

Durandus did not admit this but contended that the Son proceeded from the
Father's nature as pre-understood, antecedent to any consideration of intellect
and will.

The reply is in the affirmative. It is at least virtually revealed and
theologically certain that the Word, or the Son, proceeds from the Father by
intellectual generation, from the intellect of the Father. Indeed many recent
theologians hold that this proposition is proximately definable.[163] D'Ales
gives this proposition as proximately of faith: "The Son proceeds from the
Father according to intellectual generation," and he gives the following
proposition as common doctrine: "The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father
and the Son according to mutual love." And this seems to be true.

Proof. In the Scriptures, He who is called the Word is also called the Son.
But this is not a question of a word enunciated exteriorly but of an immanent
word, as is clear from the context. An immanent word, however, is conceived by
the intellect, it is the concept expressed by the intellect, as the Fathers
taught.[164]

This doctrine is confirmed by the fact that in the Scriptures the Son of God
is called not only the Word, but Wisdom, the image of the Father, and the
splendor of His glory and the figure of His substance.[165]

In the reply it was stated that this doctrine is theologically certain
because it is at least virtually revealed, but it is more probable that it is
implied in a formal revelation, for the required process is explicative rather
than discursive when we have a clear understanding of the idea of a mental word.
This will become clearer below.

Second doubt. In the body of the article, does St. Thomas intend to say that
a word is produced in every intellection?

The reply is in the negative, for manifestly St. Thomas holds that the Son
and the Holy Ghost understand and still do not produce a word. The three divine
persons understand by the same numerically one essential intellect, but only the
Father enunciates, just as in a classroom both the teacher and the pupils
understand but only the teacher enunciates. Moreover, St. Thomas holds that in
heaven the blessed, seeing God immediately, do not express an accidental word,
which would be intelligible by participation and would not be able to represent
God as He is in Himself since He is essentially subsisting intelligence
itself.[166] St. Thomas did not intend to exclude these instances when in the
body of the article he states: "Whenever anyone understands, by the very
fact that he understands he produces something within himself, which is the
concept of the thing which is understood." But such is the case in every
created intelligence of the natural order, as when a man or an angel understands
himself and other things besides himself. We still have sufficient analogy here
to conceive what the divine Word is as mentioned in the prologue of St. John's
Gospel. It is still true to say, therefore, that whoever understands, by the
fact that he is an intellectual nature, produces a word in some intellectual
act. The analogy offered by St. Thomas is based on the fact that it is a
property of an intellectual nature to produce a word. Further, it is a
perfection that can be purged of imperfections and can be attributed to God as
the highest intelligence.

Objection. In the created intellect a word is required to know an object
which is not understood of itself in act. But God is subsisting intelligence
itself and therefore He is not only intelligible of Himself in act, but actually
understood in act. Therefore no word is required in God.

Reply. I distinguish the major: that an accidental word because of a natural
indigence is so required, I concede; that a substantial word is required, I
deny. I concede the minor and distinguish the conclusion: therefore in God an
accidental word because of a natural indigence is not required, I concede; that
a substantial Word because of the divine fecundity is not required, I deny.

I insist. Now the analogy between an accidental word produced because of a
natural indigence and the substantial word produced from divine fecundity or
superabundance is destroyed.

Reply. . Although the comparison is not univocal, the analogy remains for in
creatures the accidental word is not required only because of a natural
indigence (inasmuch as the thinking subject is not of itself understood in actu
secundo) but because it pertains to the fecundity and perfection of the created
intellect to speak vitally and interiorly by expressing a concept. Thus the
philosopher rejoices when after a long and difficult search he finally gives
birth to the word that solves his difficulty; now he can die for he has found
the truth.

I insist. But why do not the Son and the Holy Ghost produce a word by their
intellection?

Reply. This is part of the mystery and cannot be explained entirely. But we
can say and should say, as do the Thomists, one intellection will have one word
when that word is adequate. But in God intellection is infinite, and also the
same for the three divine persons. Therefore in God there is one, infinite, and
adequate word and no other word need be produced. The three persons understand
but only the Father enunciates because He enunciates adequately, or because the
Word already enunciated is perfect and without any imperfection. Nothing more
need be enunciated in God nor would anything more be needed in the case of men
if the teacher would be able adequately to say all that pertained to the matter
under discussion. At first sight this distinction between intellection and
enunciation may seem too subtle, but it is not without some foundation. Many
men, even after years of laborious study, cannot express interiorly and
exteriorly the solution of some difficult problem; but when some great genius
discovers the solution and gives birth to the word or notion interiorly and
expresses it exteriorly others are able often to understand without difficulty.
They may not be able to enunciate the solution but they are able to understand
without much difficulty. Indeed, if some great mind were to discover the perfect
and adequate solution of a question, he would express it in a definitive
statement that would need no further emendation or amplification, whereas we are
continually obliged to perfect our imperfect and inadequate statements of
solutions.

Finally, it is often remarked that loquacious people use innumerable words
without reason, whereas wise people, especially in their later years, use few
words, words that are effective and almost adequate, like the confident and
clear statements of the saints and great doctors, which others are generally
able to understand although they would never have been able to discover them. In
this way we can understand analogically and without too much subtlety that in
the Trinity the three persons understand, but the Father alone enunciates
because the Word is adequate. We, on the other hand, make use of many inadequate
words.

Objection. In his reply to the second objection, St. Thomas says: "The
divine Word is perfectly one with Him from whom He proceeds and without any
diversity"; and in the <Contra Gentes>[167] he says: "The being
of the Word is the intellect of God itself." But then the Word would not
proceed as a distinct person. Therefore the analogy is not valid.

Reply. I deny the minor and the consequent. St. Thomas denies numerical
diversity of nature between the Father and the Word, but the diversity of
persons as revealed still remains. This diversity is only relative and inasmuch
as it is real arises from the procession, for procession, inasmuch as it is
real, requires extremes that are really distinct, at least with regard to their
mode of being. Such is the reasoning of many Thomists, among them Billuart. Thus
the word in our minds is diverse from our intellect both knowing and known, not
indeed according to intelligible and intentional being but according to real and
entitative being, for the word in us is an accident of our intellects.

I insist. If the Word is a distinct person as a person, if not as a nature,
He still depends on the Father. But God cannot depend on another; this is an
obvious imperfection. Therefore the Word is not a divine person or God.

Reply. I distinguish the major: He would depend on the Father if He proceeded
as from a cause and freely, I concede; if He proceeds from the Father solely as
from a principle because of the necessary and infinite fecundity of the divine
nature, I deny. Thus, the Father in His intellection is not able not to produce
the Word. We have here a communication of nature without efficient causality;
this communication is the transmission of something pre-existent without losing
it. In the equilateral triangle the first angle constructed does not cause but
communicates its own surface area to the other two equal angles, and these two
angles are not less perfect than the first. Indeed, the geometrical figure can
be inverted so that one of the two angles at the base is placed on top.

I insist. But the necessary and intimate dependence still remains.

Reply. I deny the consequent, because for true dependence it is required that
only one of the two in question depend upon the other. But the Father cannot be
more without the Son than the Son is without the Father, and yet the Father is
not said to depend on the Son. Thus in the equilateral triangle all the angles
are equal, and one angle cannot exist without the other.

On the other hand, a human son depends on his father, as from a cause; and
the man who is a father is able to be without the son, because he is able not to
be a father, since he freely begets. But God the Father is not able to be
without being the Father and He is not able to be without the Son.

Wherefore, in order that anything depend on another it is not enough that it
cannot be without the other. God the Father is not able to be without the Son
and yet He does not depend on the Son, nor is omnipotence able to exist without
the possibility of creatures and still it does not depend on this possibility.
It follows therefore that, although the Son cannot be without the Father, He
does not depend on the Father, since the Father is not the cause but only the
principle of origin. It is repugnant to God to derive from another as from a
cause, this I concede; that it is repugnant to derive as from a principle of
origin, this I ask you to disprove. The possibility of the mystery, therefore,
is not disproved or proved; it is merely presented as plausible.

I insist. But the Son receives from the Father, therefore He is passive and
in some need.

Reply. I distinguish the consequent: if at any time the Son lacked or could
lack anything He has, I concede; otherwise, I deny. Whereas a creature is able
not to be, the Son of God is not able not to be, nor is He able to lack the
divine perfections.

I insist. Each of the divine persons is the first principle; therefore each
excludes the principle of origin.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: each of the divine persons is the first
principle <ad extra>, I concede; ad intra, I deny. Thus the Father alone
is not from a principle of origin. As St. Thomas says, "To oppose the
things that are said against faith, either by showing that it is false or by
showing that it is not necessary," it is sufficient to show that the
impossibility of the mystery is not definitively proved, for example, the
dependence of the Word of God with respect to the Father is not definitively
proved. At least these objections are not cogent and therefore they do not
destroy faith. The impossibility of the procession of the Word, who is
"true God of true God," cannot be proved.

Second Article: Whether Any Procession In God Can Be Called Generation

State of the question. As the first article was a conceptual analysis of the
idea of procession, without any illative process, so this second article is a
conceptual analysis of the idea of divine generation as found in the Scriptures.
We have here a beautiful example of the transition from a confused concept to a
distinct concept. This transition takes place by eliminating the false
interpretations, from which arise the three difficulties, formulated in the
beginning of this article: 1. generation is a change from non-being to being and
therefore a divine person cannot be generated; 2. in God procession is after the
manner of intellection, but in us such intellectual procession is not called
generation; 3. the being of anything begotten is accepted and received and
therefore is not divine.

Reply. This is of faith: the procession of the Word in God is called
generation, and the Word that proceeds is called the Son.

We prove that it is of faith from Ps. 2:7: "The Lord hath said to Me:
Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee." Today, as St. Augustine
says, is the ever-present now of eternity, which is above time, above past and
future. This text of the Old Testament is illustrated by the New Testament,
especially by the prologue of St. John's Gospel. Further proof comes from Ps.
109:1-3: "The Lord said to my Lord:... from the womb before the day star I
begot thee, " although this text is less clear in the Hebrew than the
preceding text; from Isa. 53:8, in the prophecy of Christ's passion: "who
shall declare His generation?"; from Acts 8:33 and John 1:18: "No man
hath seen God at any time, the only-begotten Son..., He hath declared Him";
from John 1:14: "and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the
only-begotten of the Father"; from John 3:18: "But he that doth not
believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the
only-begotten Son of God"; and from John 3:16: "For God so loved the
world, as to give His only-begotten Son."

Similarly the creeds and councils defined that the Son of God was not created
(against Arius), not made, but begotten from the nature or substance of the
Father, and is therefore called the natural Son and not the adopted son of the
Father.[168]

In the body of the article St. Thomas makes a conceptual analysis of the
notion of generation, purifying it of every imperfection so that it can be
applied to God not only by a metaphorical analogy but also by an analogy of
proper proportionality. Thus the idea of generation, found in revelation, passes
from a confused state to one more distinct. We do not arrive at a new truth, but
the same truth is explained in this manner.

Generation is the origin of one living being from a conjoined living
principle in the likeness of nature, as when a man begets a man. But the
procession of the Word is the origin of a living being from a conjoined living
being, yet without transition from potency to act or to new being. Therefore the
procession of the Word is properly generation and not only metaphorically so.

Explanation of the major. The generation of everything that can be generated
in the natural order is a change from non-being to being, as when non-living
fire is generated from fire. But that generation which is proper to living
beings is the origin of a living being from a conjoined living being, that is,
from the father and not from the grandfather, through the active communication
of the nature of the generator in the likeness of at least the specific nature.
The angels therefore cannot properly be called the sons of God because they did
not receive the divine nature from God.

Explanation of the minor. The procession of the Word after the manner of
intellection is the origin of a living being from a conjoined living being and
in the likeness of nature because the concept in the intellect is the likeness
of the thing understood. Indeed, in God, since God the Father understands and
enunciates Himself, a nature numerically the same is communicated, because in
God being and intellection are the same. Thus the Word is not only God as
understood according to intentional being but true God according to physical and
entitative being, as will be explained more fully in the solution of the second
objection.

The theory of the Latins, then, based on the fact that the Son of God is
called the Word in St. John's Gospel, explains how the eternal generation of the
only-begotten Son is without any imperfection and without transition from
potency to act or from non-being to being. This is the correct interpretation of
our Lord's words: "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He hath given
to the Son also to have life in Himself" (John 5:26), and "I and the
Father are one" (10:30). We refer the reader to the article.

This article, therefore, does not deduce a theological conclusion, but
explains this truth of faith, that the Son is generated by the Father because He
proceeds from the Father intellectually as the Word. And in this generation we
see the infinite fecundity of the divine nature, so often mentioned by Alexander
of Hales and St. Bonaventure.

The reply is confirmed by the solution of the objections.

1. The first difficulty was: Generation implies the transition from potency
to act. But such transition cannot be in God who is pure act. Therefore there is
no generation in God.

Reply. I distinguish the major: generation implies the transition from
potency to act in the created mode of generation, I concede; in the formal mode
of generation, I deny, because formally it is required only that generation be
the origin of a living being from a conjoined living being in the likeness of
nature. I concede the minor. I distinguish the conclusion: therefore there is no
generation in God according to the created mode, I concede; according to its
formal mode, I deny. The analogy is one of proportionality, not only
metaphorical, but it is an analogy that reason by itself could not have
discovered. God has revealed it to us.

2. The second difficulty was: Procession in God is after the manner of
intellection. But in us such intellectual procession is not generation; we speak
only metaphorically of the parturition of a word in ourselves.

Reply. I concede the major and the minor, but I deny the parity. The
disparity arises from the fact that in God alone and not in us to understand is
substantial intellection itself. In God alone understanding and the mental
concept are something substantial and not accidental, as in us. In us the word
proceeds as an accident in which is represented the substance of that which is
understood. In God, on the other hand, the Word proceeds as the subsistence of
the same nature and therefore He is properly said to be begotten and the Son.
The divine Word, therefore, is not only God as understood, or God in a
representative or intentional manner, but true God from true God. This matter is
explained at greater length in the <Contra Gentes.>[169]

John of St. Thomas explains that our intellect forming within itself a
concept of itself or a representation of itself assimilates this term to itself,
at least imperfectly. An imperfect intellect, human or angelic, assimilates its
word imperfectly, only intentionally, and in a representative or intelligible
manner. The perfect intellect, however assimilates its Word most perfectly, not
only intentionally, but really in nature and in a nature that is numerically
one, so that the divine Word is not accidental but substantial, at the same time
living and understanding, because in God being and understanding and being
understood are the same. Revelation affirms that this substantial Word is the
person of the Son of God. This is true generation, which primarily deserves the
name generation; other kinds of generation are generation by participation and
secondarily, although they are prior in our knowledge. Therefore St. Paul
said," or this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named" (Eph. 3:14 f.).[170]

Our word is called a concept, not something generated. Conception is the
initial formation of a living being; generation is its perfect production,
including the evolution of the embryo. Our intellection goes as far as the
intellectual conception of the word but not as far as the intellectual
generation. Thus we speak of our faculty of conceiving, but not of generating
intellectually. So also it is with the angels. In God alone, in His intimate
life, known only by revelation, conception is at the same time intellectual
generation, properly so called.

Conception And Generation According To St. Thomas[171]

In every (animal) conception, according to St. Thomas, "The matter of
what is conceived is prepared by the generative power of the mother; the
formative force, however, is in the seed of the father."[172] Then follows
the development of the embryo, terminating in the generation of the animal.
Conception, therefore, is the beginning of animal generation.

The word "conception" was then transferred to signify intellectual
conception because our intellect as a passive potency is fecundated by the
object or by the impressed species derived from the object, and then our
intelligence, fecundated and informed, conceives its mental word to express to
itself some extramental thing or the mind itself. And indeed it is a great
accomplishment to profoundly conceive something, like a book that we are about
to write or the order observed in the Summa theologica. But this intellectual
conception in us does not go as far as intellectual generation, because our word
is only an accident in our minds and not a living substance like the
understanding mind itself. On the contrary, in God, whose intellect is
subsisting intellection itself and subsisting being itself and subsisting life
itself, the Word, mentioned in revelation, cannot be an accidental word but is
the substantial Word, living and understanding. Therefore in God conception,
which is the initial step in generation, attains to the perfect generation of
the Word, who is true God from true God, not only God as conceived but really
God of true God.

John of St. Thomas says, and in this he agrees with Ferrariensis, "The
procession of the word, standing precisely in the line of intellection and by
the force of its formality,... purified of every imperfection... becomes
substantial and generative."[173] This follows not only materially because
of the divine subject but also formally because of the procession of the word
when it is purged of every imperfection. This helps explain the joy of a great
thinker who has found the answer to some great problem and gives birth to a
word; in its highest sense this parturition of the word would be generation, not
corporeal but spiritual. The reason given by St. Thomas is that, "Since the
divine intelligence is of the highest perfection, it is necessary that the
divine Word be perfectly one with Him from whom it proceeds without any
diversity of nature."[174] In the highest state of perfection the
procession of the word is substantial and generative whereas in us it is
accidental. The word in us, called rather a concept than something generated, is
not a living and intelligent person but only an accident; in God the Word is
substantial, living, and intelligent, and, as we shall see, a person relative to
the Father. We cannot converse with our word or have communion with it- man
remains alone with his ideas. But the Father has communion and lives in society
with the Son.

First corollary. We see how the notions of generation and intellectual
procession mutually illuminate each other. It is more certain that there is in
God a procession after the manner of generation than that there is in God a
procession which is properly intellectual. The first is manifestly of faith; the
second is at least theologically certain. But without an intellectual procession
it would be very difficult to conceive of generation in God and to show that
this generation is actual and not simply metaphorical. For this reason St.
Thomas speaks in his first article of intellectual procession and in his second
article of generation, although the latter is more certain. This is one reason
among others on account of which the Latin concept of the Trinity, sometimes
called the psychological theory of St. Augustine based on revelation, prevailed
over other concepts.

Second corollary. Since this divine generation of the Word is eternal (above
the continuous time of men and the discrete time of the angels), it follows that
in the ever-present now of eternity the Father always begets and the Son is
always born, or as St. Augustine says, the divine generation takes place without
any newness of being.[175]

Third corollary. A great joy rises from this eternal generation. Vestiges of
this joy are found in the mother when a child is born to her, and in a great
scholar when after long labor he perfects his work of making some truth
manifest.

Fourth corollary. In God to be begotten, like the begetting, implies no
imperfection, nor is it less perfect to be begotten than to beget, nor does it
produce less joy, for it is impossible to beget without someone being begotten,
and being begotten eternally and necessarily is not a transition from potency to
act.[176] But we do not say that paternity or the begetting is a simple
perfection properly so called, for although it does not imply any imperfection
it is not simply better to have paternity than not to have it. If this were so,
some simple perfection properly so called would be denied to the Son, and the
Son would not be God.[177] The essence and dignity of the Father and the Son are
the same; in the Father we have the relation of the giver, in the Son the
relation of the receiver. Here is the mystery, but we see that the divine
relations by reason of their concepts do not add any relative perfection that
would be virtually distinct from the absolute perfection of the divine essence.
Such is the thought of most Thomists, as we shall see below.

We are still confronted with the difficulty proposed in the third objection:
"The being of anyone who is begotten is accepted and received, " and
therefore it is not divine, for the divine being is self-subsisting and not
received.

In his reply to the third objection, St. Thomas says that the being of anyone
who is begotten is accepted indeed but not received always in some subject. Thus
the entire substance of created things is accepted by God but it is not received
in some receptive subject. So also the being of the Word is accepted but not
received; it is self-subsisting being itself.

In the perfection of the divine being itself there is contained both the
intelligibly proceeding Word and the principle of the Word as well as the other
things which pertain to its perfection. From these words of St. Thomas it
appears, in the opinion of many Thomists, that the relations in God do not by
reason of their concepts add any new relative perfection that is virtually
distinct from the absolute divine perfection.

On the other hand, in several places St. Thomas says that the being of any
created being is not only accepted from God but also received in the created
essence, or more correctly in the created suppositum. "It should be
said," says St. Thomas, "that at the same time that God gives being He
produces that which receives the being; and thus fittingly He does not act in
dependence on some pre-existing being."[178]

This text and many others are quoted against Suarez and his followers to show
that for St. Thomas a real distinction exists between the created essence and
the created being. For the created being is not only accepted from God, as
Suarez admits, but it is also received and therefore limited by the essence in
which it is received. The divine being, however, is not received, no more in the
Son and the Holy Ghost than in the Father.

Another objection. By reason of the procession the Word proceeds as
understood and not as understanding, for it proceeds as the term of the paternal
intellection. Therefore because of the procession the Word does not proceed as
like to the Father, and therefore this procession is not generation.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: the Word by reason of the procession
proceeds as understood and not as understanding notionally or as enunciating, I
concede; not as understanding essentially, I deny. Likeness of nature is not
dependent on the notional qualities or notional acts like active generation and
active spiration, but on essentials. Analogically in men, although the son does
not proceed as generating but as generated, the son nevertheless proceeds like
the father in nature. So it is proportionally in God.

Doubt. How does the enunciation of the Father differ from the essential
intellection which is common to the three persons, as in the statement,
"The three persons understand but the Father alone enunciates"?

Reply. The enunciation of the Father differs only by reason from the
essential intellection and it is not actually different from the relation of
paternity, which in turn is not really distinct from the divine essence.[179]
St. Thomas offers a profound explanation: "The origin of motion inasmuch as
it begins with another... is called action. If we remove the motion, the action
implies no more than the order of origin according to which the action proceeds
from some cause or principle to that which is from the principle. Since in God
there is no motion, the personal action which produces a person is nothing else
than the relation of a principle to the person who is from the principle. These
relations are the actual divine relations or notions."[180] No difference
exists between them except in the manner of speaking inasmuch as we speak of
divine things in the manner of sensible things.

Certain difficulties have been proposed by Durandus and Scotus concerning St.
Thomas' first and second articles; but rather than adding anything to the matter
they tend to obscure it. We shall not delay in considering them here but content
ourselves with a few words about these difficulties at the end of this question.
They are all solved by St. Thomas later when he comes to speak of the comparison
of the persons with the essence, relations, and notional acts.

Third Article: Whether There Is In God Another Procession Besides The
Generation Of The Word

State of the question. According to revelation expressed in the Scriptures
and divine tradition there is a third divine person, who is often called the
Holy Ghost, as in the formula of baptism, and sometimes the Paraclete from the
words para and kaleo, parakletos that is, advocate, intercessor, and consoler.
As we see, this is not a simple divine operation, like essential love, but a
person to whom are attributed divine operations and divine perfection according
to our Lord's words: "And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you
another Paraclete" (John 14:16), and "The Spirit of truth, who
proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me" (John 15:26).

In this article St. Thomas makes a conceptual analysis of this second
procession. In stating the question he proposes three difficulties: 1. If a
second procession is found in God, why not a third and so to infinity? 2. In
every nature we find only one mode of communicating that nature, namely,
generation. 3. The procession of love cannot be distinguished from the
intellectual procession even in God because in God the will is not different
from the intellect.

Reply. The reply is nevertheless that it is of faith that "besides the
procession of the Word there is another procession in God," and we add that
this is the procession of love, although this does not appear to be of faith but
the common opinion.

1. This first part is proved from the Scriptures: "I will ask the
Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete" (John 14:16); and
"But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the
Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of
Me" (John 15:26).

2. The second procession is explained theologically.

In God procession takes place according to immanent and not transient action.
But in an intellectual nature immanent action is twofold: intellection and
volition, or love. Therefore, in God, an intellectual agent, it is proper that
besides the intellectual procession there be another procession, which is the
procession of love.

First doubt. Did St. Thomas intend to demonstrate the existence of the second
procession strictly from the first? Even if the second procession were not
revealed and if the existence of the Holy Ghost were not revealed, could the
second procession be certainly known by a theological process.

Reply. This does not seem to have been St. Thomas' intention, although he
uses the words, "In evidence of this." According to his custom,
whenever he was treating of essentially supernatural mysteries, St. Thomas
wished to show that the mystery is not opposed to reason. He then offers reasons
of propriety, which while they are profound, especially to those who contemplate
the mystery, are not demonstrative, for this progressive contemplation does not
lead to the evidence of demonstration but to the higher evidence of the beatific
vision. Such reasons of propriety belong to a sphere that is above
demonstrability. If we were to offer these reasons as demonstrative, we would
minimize rather than appreciate their force. His argumentation, therefore, does
not strictly prove that there is a second procession or that there is the
existence of a third person, unless this were revealed.

We may ask, on the supposition that the existence of the third person and of
the second procession are revealed, can we strictly prove that this second
procession is the procession of love, because it is at least theologically
certain that the first procession is after the manner of intellection? The
argument could be supported with some difficulty because it is less certain that
love has an immanent term than that intellection or enunciation has as its term
the expressed word.

The immanent term of love is exceedingly mysterious, for love tends toward
the good which is in things outside the mind, whereas the intellect tends to the
truth, which is formally in the mind in the likeness of the extramental thing.

In an article entitled <A propos de la procession d'amour en
Dieu>,[181] which agrees with Father Chevalier,[182] Penido proposes this
correction of St. Thomas' text in <De veritate>: "The operation of
the will terminates with things in which there is good and evil, but the
operation of the intellect terminates in the mind, in which there are truth and
falsehood, as we read in <VI Metaph.>, chap. 8; and therefore the will
does not have anything proceeding from itself that is in it, except after the
manner of operation; but the intellect has something in itself that proceeds
from it not only after the manner of operation but also after the manner of a
thing accomplished. Therefore 'the word' signifies a thing that proceeds but
'love' signifies an operation that proceeds."[183] In many editions the
word "except" is omitted and the passage appears unintelligible. In
the <Contra Gentes>,[184] St. Thomas says: "That which is loved is in
the will of the lover (not in the likeness of its species), but as the term of
motion in the proportionate moving principle." That which is loved exists
in the will of the lover as something that inclines and in a way interiorly
impels the lover toward the thing itself that is loved.

It should be said, therefore, that the argument proposed in this article is
at least an argument of propriety, explaining the nature of the second
procession as the procession of love. This argument is very profound and
sublime; it shows that the psychological theory of the Trinity proposed by St.
Augustine is in accord with revelation. When we speak of the Word, however,
revelation itself indicates the analogy in the prologue of St. John, "In
the beginning was the Word...." But with regard to the second procession we
do not find in Scripture a similar indication; the Holy Ghost is not called love
even by the Greek Fathers. He is indeed called sweetness and benignity, and the
word "spirit" has an allusion to the will. At the present time it is
the common opinion that the Holy Ghost proceeds as personal love.[185]

Second doubt. What is the relation of the Holy Ghost to this second
procession?

Reply. The Holy Ghost is the terminus of the procession of love as the Word
is the terminus of the intellectual procession. Therefore St. Thomas, in the
body of the article, says: "In the second procession that which is loved is
in the lover, as in the conception of the Word the thing enunciated or
understood is in him who understands."

The terminus of love has no special name. Cajetan offers the following
explanation. "What is loved is not in the lover except as the affection of
the lover for that which is loved." We have a certain difference here
between intellection and love, for a likeness of that which is loved is not
produced in the lover like the likeness of the thing understood which is
produced in him who understands. In the lover, however, there is a certain
impulse and propensity of the will toward that which is loved, and this impulse
is in the lover as the unnamed terminus of love. St. Augustine said, "My
love is my weight." In this sense the second procession is to be understood
as the procession of love.[186]

Solution of the objections. The first objection is: Therefore we must admit a
third procession and so to infinity.

Reply. In the divine processions it is not necessary to go on to infinity,
for that procession in intellectual natures which is within is terminated by the
procession of the will. Here the psychological theory is in accord with
revelation and corroborates it. This theory assigns a reason why there are no
more and no less than two processions, and thus offers a reason of propriety,
not a demonstration, because we are dealing with an essentially supernatural
mystery. That this is not a strict demonstration will appear in the second
objection.

Second objection. In every nature we find only one mode of communicating that
nature, namely, by generation. Therefore in the divine nature there should be
but one mode of communicating the divine nature, that is, by intellection and
not by the will.

Reply. We deny the parity between the nature of corruptible things and the
divine nature. The disparity arises from the fact that whatever is in God is
God, and this is not true of other natures. Therefore the divine nature is
communicated by any procession that is not <ad extra>. Hence the divine
nature is communicated even in the procession of love, because whatever is in
God is God and not a part of God.

In his reply, based on faith, St. Thomas shows that the objection has no
force, but he did not intend to prove the second procession from the first so
that the second procession would be certain even if it had not been revealed.

I insist. The entire nature is adequately communicated by the first
procession, and therefore it is no longer communicable. As there is only one
Word, so there should be but one procession.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: that the entire nature is totally
communicated in the first procession, that is, in every way that it is
communicable, I deny or I ask you to prove it: that it is communicated entire
but not totally, that is, in every communicable manner, I concede. For according
to revelation we know that not only the Son but the Holy Ghost also proceeds
from the Father. According to St. Augustine's theory it appears that the divine
nature is communicable and fecund in two ways: by the intellect and by love.
Indeed, Richard of St. Victor emphasized this second way to such an extent that
he seemed to neglect the first mode by intellection. Neither should be
neglected.

I insist. Whatever is infinite is unique and excludes all else. But the first
procession is infinite. Therefore it excludes a second procession.

Reply. I distinguish the major: whatever is infinite is unique in its own
order and excludes others of the same order, I concede; that it excludes things
of another order, I deny. Thus the mercy of God is infinite and excludes another
infinite mercy, but it does not exclude infinite justice. The same is true of
the processions.

Third objection. In God intellect and will are not distinct. Therefore
neither is the procession of love distinct from the intellectual procession.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: that the intellect and the will in God
are not really distinct, I concede; that they are not distinct by reason and
virtually, I deny; and I distinguish the consequent in the same way. The two
processions are not really distinct except with regard to the mutually opposed
relations. Thus active spiration is not really distinct from the active
generation by the Father, nor from the passive generation of the Son, but it is
distinct from the passive spiration of the Holy Ghost.

Moreover, as St. Thomas notes in the same place, "While in God the will
and intellect are not different, nevertheless because of the nature of the
intellect and will the processions according to the action of each follow a
certain order." For nothing is loved unless known beforehand, and therefore
there is no procession of love unless there is a process of intellection. Here
again we see the propriety of the psychological theory, and an indication that
an image of the Trinity is to be found in the soul.

Third doubt. Whether the two divine processions differ in species and number?

Reply. There is a quasi-difference in species, that is, they differ not only
in number, otherwise both processions would be generation or spiration. They do
not, however, differ in the proper sense in species because in God genus and
species do not exist in the strict sense. Speaking analogically with reference
to creatures, we can say that the processions differ in a certain sense
according to species, not by reason of a diversity of natures but by reason of
the personal properties, which are diverse in the one nature. This is not true
of creatures. It does not follow from this that the three persons differ in
species, for their nature is one not only in species but also in number.

Fourth Article: Whether In God The Procession Of Love Is Generation

The reply is in the negative.

1. Because of faith. The Athanasian Creed tells us: "The Holy Ghost is
of the Father and of the Son, not made, not created, not begotten, but
proceeding."

2. Further explanation is found in the psychological theory, which on this
point is sufficiently in accord with the teaching of faith. The Greek Fathers
and St. Augustine declared that they were not able to discover a reason why the
second procession was not generation like the first procession.

St. Thomas offers the following reason.

Generation, in its formal concept, takes place after the manner of
assimilation of the begotten to the begetter, who produces something like
himself in nature. But such assimilation is found in procession from the
intellect, when the Father knows Himself and enunciates, but it is not found in
the procession of the will. Therefore the procession of love cannot be called
generation.

The major is evident. The minor is proved from the fact that the intellect
assimilates a thing to itself when the truth is in the intellect by the likeness
of the thing known. But the will by its nature is not an assimilative faculty or
power; it is inclining and tends to a thing because the thing is good; it tends
to the good as it is in things and not as it is represented in the mind. Thus
the will does not produce by its own power a terminus like to itself or to the
object; it produces an inclination and a tendency to the thing that is loved.

3. The procession which is not generation remains without a special name; it
may be called spiration because it is the procession of the Spirit.

Fifth Article: Whether There Are More Than Two Processions In God

The reply is in the negative and it is of faith.

1. This is known from the Scriptures and from the definitions of the Church,
according to which there are only three persons, one that does not proceed and
two others that proceed, and hence there are but two processions.

2. This truth is also explained by the psychological theory, which more and
more appears as a concept based on revelation; because in every intellectual
nature there are only two immanent actions, intellect and will.

The divine nature as good is diffusive of itself and it is diffusive in a
twofold manner: through the intellectual procession and through the procession
of love, "Inasmuch as God understands and loves His essence, truth, and
goodness." Thus St. Thomas, even in this treatise, preserves the principle
frequently quoted by St. Bonaventure: good is essentially diffusive of itself,
and the higher the nature the more intimately and abundantly is it diffusive of
itself. But within God this diffusion is not through final or efficient
causality but above the order of causality. Yet there is a completely intimate
and superabundant diffusion in the communication of the entire and infinite
divine nature through generation and spiration.

Doubts about this whole question.

First doubt. What is the <principium quod> of each procession,
considered actively, that is, what is the principle that generates and the
principle that spirates?

Reply. It is the Father that generates, and the Father and the Son that
spirate. "The divine nature does not beget, is not begotten, and does not
proceed; but it is the Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy
Ghost who proceeds."[187] With regard to the second procession, it has been
defined: "The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son."[188]
If the divine nature generated, the generation would be in the three persons and
the three persons would generate, and so the Holy Ghost would generate a fourth
person and so to infinity. Again, if the divine nature were begotten, the three
persons would be begotten; if the divine nature proceeded, the three persons
would proceed.

Second doubt. What is the principle through which (<principium quo>)
each procession takes place actively considered?

Reply. According to revelation each procession terminates with one person who
proceeds not from the divine nature taken in itself, but the Son proceeds from
the divine nature as it is of the Father (because it is the Father who
generates), and the Holy Ghost proceeds from the divine nature as it is of the
Father and the Son, since these two spirate.

Therefore we say that the <principium quo> (the principle through
which) of each procession actively considered is the intellect and the will in
the divine nature as modified by the relations of paternity and active
spiration. It is important to add "as modified" because essential
intellection and essential love are common to the three persons and thus are not
processions. Such is the common teaching of the Thomists. The psychological
theory, although it wishes to pluck out the persons from the processions, to a
certain extent must suppose the persons and relations in order fully to define
the processions. This is part of the obscurity of this theory, and we should not
be surprised at it because these notions of procession, relation, and person
mutually illustrate each other just as in ontology the notions of being, unity,
truth, goodness, and beauty throw light on one another.[189]

From these passages from St. Thomas we see that the <principium quo> of
the divine processions implies something absolute and something relative: it is
absolute in recto as form, and relative in obliquo as mode. Thus we say that the
proximate <principium quo> of the processions is the intellect and the
love in the divine nature, but as modified by the relations of paternity and
active spiration. The three persons know, but only the Father enunciates by
generating or generates by enunciating; the three persons love, but only the
Father and the Son spirate. This is sufficiently clear in spite of the obscurity
of the mystery.

Third doubt. Is the power of generating in God a perfection?

Reply. The difficulty arises from the fact that this perfection would be
lacking in the Son and the Holy Ghost, belonging only to the Father, and thus
the three persons would not be equally perfect.

The reply is based on the fact that the power of generating directly

(in recto) signifies the divine nature, but indirectly (in obliquo) the
divine relation, as will be more clearly explained below.[190] This is to say
that the power of generating pertains to the divine nature as it is in the
Father. Wherefore the power of generating in God is a perfection with respect to
that which it signifies directly, namely, the absolute, which is the divine
nature; but it is not a perfection with respect to that which it signifies
indirectly (in obliquo), namely, the relation of paternity, which according to
its relative being (<<esse ad>>) abstracts from perfection and
imperfection, because it does not involve imperfection nor is it a new
perfection superadded to the infinite perfection of the divine nature. Something
similar is taught concerning the free act of creation, which is virtually
distinct from the necessary act of love, since the act of creation does not
involve an imperfection nor does it add a new perfection. Thus God was not
improved by the fact that He freely willed to create the universe.

Fourth doubt. Whether the divine processions, actively considered, are true
and proper actions or only emanations, like the faculties that emanate from the
essence of the soul.

Reply. In their reply the Thomists oppose Suarez. They say that the
processions are true actions, but actions that are merely immanent because they
are the act of the intellect ad intra, namely, enunciation, and the act of the
will, namely, active spiration. This immanent action can be purified of every
imperfection, as is indeed the creative act, an immanent action which is
virtually transient and transitive.

But we do not say that God the Father as begetting is truly and properly
acting, but only truly and properly understanding and enunciating; so also the
Father and the Son in active spiration are not properly acting, because in
common usage the expression "acting" is taken to mean an efficient
cause and not a principle alone. The Father is not the cause of the Son, and the
Son is not an effect. Indeed although the Father is the principle of the Word,
the Son is not said to be principled, because, as St. Thomas points out,[191] to
be principled or derive from a principle implies an imperfection that cannot be
attributed to the Son.

The Word is not principled, but He is a principle from a principle. Therefore
there is no other distinction between the Father and the Son except the
distinction of origin; no distinction exists with regard to nature, dignity,
omnipotence, and the like: "All things whatsoever the Father hath, are
Mine" (John 16:15). For this reason it is better to speak of quasi-active
generation and quasi-active spiration, and especially of quasi-passive
generation and quasi-passive spiration, for passivity, properly speaking,
corresponds to transitive action. Generation and spiration, however, are simply
immanent actions above the order of causality; through them the divine nature is
not caused but communicated.

Fifth doubt. How does the divine Word differ from our word?

Reply. It differs in many ways.[192] 1. The Word of God is something
substantial, living, and intelligent; it is, moreover, a person, but our word is
only an accident of our minds. God alone is subsisting intellect. 2. The divine
Word exists, not like ours because of a need, but from the infinite abundance
and fecundity. 3. The divine Word is co-eternal with the Father, it is
immutable, and is begotten perpetually, all of which is not verified in our
word. 4. The divine Word is unique because it is adequate; our word is
inadequate and therefore multiple, indeed it is more multiple in the inferior
created intellects.

Nevertheless an analogy remains between the two words, because both are
termini of the enunciating intellect or enunciation, and both are images or
representations of the thing that is known; both are conceived by the mind, but
only in God does this conception deserve the name of generation in its proper
sense; both are simply spiritual, intrinsically independent of matter and the
corruption of material things. But, according to the declaration of the Fourth
Lateran Council, "The similarity between the Creator and the creature is
never so great that the dissimilarity is not always greater."[193] These
declarations might serve as a definition of analogy, for, as we have often shown
with St. Thomas,[194] things are analogous when they have the same name, but
what is signified by the name is the same <secundum quid> and
proportionately but simply different in these analogous things.

Recapitulation

In this question 27 we have seen that in God there are processions ad intra,
why there are two and only two processions, and why the first procession alone
is called generation.

In the first article, in the light of revelation, we saw that in God there is
a procession after the manner of intelligible emanation of an intelligible Word
from one who enunciates. It is a procession ad intra, not <ad extra>; it
is not a procession like a being of the mind, but a real procession.

In the same article we saw that the Word has the same nature as the Father
from whom He proceeds. The perfection and propriety of this procession <ad
intra> became manifest in the light of the following principle: "that
which proceeds <ad intra> by an intellectual process should not be diverse
in nature from him from whom it proceeds; indeed the more perfectly it proceeds
the more it will be one with that from which it proceeds, like the intellectual
concept with the intellect. Thus the Word understood and enunciated by the
Father is one with Him in nature; nor is the Word an accidental word—it is
substantial, just as the divine intellect is not an accident, since it is
subsisting intellect itself.

As St. Thomas says in the <Contra Gentes>, "The higher any nature
is, the more intimate with it will be that which proceeds from it."[195]
Thus the Angelic Doctor safeguards the principle that good is essentially
diffusive of itself, and the higher the nature the more intimately and fully
will it be diffusive of itself. In God there is, then, a diffusion <ad
intra> transcending the order of efficient and final causality.

In the second article we saw that the procession of the Word is rightly
called generation because it is the origin of a living being from a conjoined
living being in the likeness of its nature. The concept of the intellect is a
likeness of the thing understood; so also the Word is the likeness of the Father
knowing Himself, existing in the same nature, since in God intellect and being
are the same. That knowledge which is had by means of an expressed likeness of
the thing known is essentially assimilative.

In the third article, in addition to the procession of the Word, we learned
of the procession of love, inasmuch as the love of the good follows the
conception of the good.

In the fourth article it was explained why the procession of love is not
generation; because it is through the will, which by its own power is not
assimilative and does not assimilate a thing to itself, but inclines toward the
thing that is willed, like a weight, in the words of St. Augustine, "My
love, my weight."

As a complement to this teaching on the processions, we shall explain below
that the three persons understand (by essential intellection), but that the
Father alone enunciates and enunciates adequately; as when three persons are
confronted by a difficult problem, one discovers an adequate solution and all
three equally understand what is enunciated by one of the three.[196] In the
same way we shall explain proportionally that, although the three persons love
(with essential love), only the Father and the Son spirate the Holy Ghost, who
is the terminus of this active spiration.[197]

In this present question, St. Thomas did not intend as yet to solve these
various doubts because their solution will be much more patent later on.[198]
The holy doctor proceeds without haste, passing gradually from the confused
concept to a more distinct concept of the same thing. His commentators, however,
are obliged at times to examine these doubts earlier because they are sometimes
proposed as objections against the articles under questions 27 and 28.

CHAPTER II: QUESTION 28 THE DIVINE RELATIONS

Prologue. "Next in order we consider the divine relations." St.
Thomas says "next in order" because according to faith these relations
are the relations of origin or procession, inasmuch as the Son proceeds from the
Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. Therefore the
processions are the foundation of really distinct relations which, as we shall
see in the following question, formally constitute the persons. Hence we are now
speaking implicitly of the persons although they are not yet explicitly
mentioned.[199]

This question on the divine relations is of the greatest importance because,
as we shall see below,[200] the persons are constituted by subsisting relations
opposed to one another, which are in God not only virtually but also formally.
Since these relations are in God, they cannot involve any imperfection so that,
for example, filiation will not involve any dependence. This concept of relation
is the philosophical idea developed by Aristotle and it is applied to the divine
persons, who are called by relative terms in the Scriptures: the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. In this fundamental question, therefore, we are still
concerned rather with an explanation of the principles of faith than with the
deduction of theological conclusions. We are to explain why the Father is so
called relative to the Son, why the Son is so called relative to the Father, and
the Holy Ghost relative to the Father and the Son. Consequently we consider here
the real distinction of the divine persons as revealed and as founded on the
opposition of relations. In these articles we shall study the basis of that
principle which throws light on the entire treatise of the Trinity and by which
the principal objections are answered: "In God all things are one and the
same when there is no opposition of relation."[201]

Division of the question. In this question we ask four things:

I. Are there real relations in God?

II. What are these relations? Are they the divine essence itself. or
something extrinsically attached to the essence?

III. Can there be in God several relations really distinct from one another?

IV. How many relations are there?

Philosophical Notes On The Idea Of Relation And Its Division

These notes are briefly recalled by St. Thomas in the body of the first
article, and it is suggested that the reader consult the first part of the body
of the article.

The category of relation is distinguished by Aristotle from the categories of
substance, quantity, quality, transitive action, passion, etc. Thus a man is
called relatively a father of another and a son of another. Aristotle calls
relation <to prosti>, or the <ad aliquid>, or the "to
something"; it is also called the reference (to something else), the order
(to something else) or the habitude.

Many Nominalists declare that there are no real relations in creatures; that
all the relations are relations of reason. On the other hand, moderate realism
sees real relations in creatures, for apart from anyone's thinking about it a
man is really the father of the son he begets. So also two white things are
really alike apart from any consideration of the mind. Paternity and likeness,
however, are merely relations; therefore there are real relations in things. St.
Thomas explains that the good of the universe, which is something real, consists
mainly in relation, namely, in the order of things to themselves and to God, and
if this order is removed, all things will be in confusion as when an army is
without any coordination and subordination of the soldiers.[202]

Relation is twofold: real and of reason. Real relation is the order in things
themselves. Thus, for example, an effect is related to the cause on which it
depends, a part to the whole, potency to act, and an act to its object. A
relation of reason is the order cogitated by the mind, as the order of the
predicate to the subject, and of species to genus. From various texts of
Aristotle and St. Thomas[203] we present the following synopsis of the division
of relation.

(diagram page 111)

Real relation,
transcendental or essential, such as essence to existence and matter to form,
and the relation of faculties, habits, and acts to the specific object.

predicamental or accidental,
according to quantity, as equal, unequal, twofold, threefold
according to quality, as like and unlike
according to action, as paternity
according to passion, as filiation

Relation of reason between things not really distinct as predicate to the
subject in a judgment as the relation of real identity of one thing with itself
between things really distinct as the knowable to knowledge as God to the
creature.

Real relations are divided into transcendental and predicamental. A
transcendental relation is the order included in the essence of a thing as, for
example, the soul's transcendental order to the body, that of matter to form,
essence to being, accident to the subject, science to its object, etc. All these
things have these relations by their very essence, and the transcendental
relation perdures even when the term disappears. Thus a separated soul continues
to be individuated by its relation to the body which is to rise again. It is
called transcendental because it transcends the special predicament of relation
and is found also in other categories, for example, in substance and quality;
indeed there is scarcely anything that is not ordered to something else by its
nature.

Predicamental relation, which is also called relation according to being
(secundum esse), is defined by Aristotle as a real accident whose whole being is
to be ordered to something else.[204] This relation is not included in the
essence of the thing, but it comes to the essence as an accident. It is pure
order or reference to a term, as, for example, paternity, filiation, the
equality of two quantities, likeness.

The real existence of these relations is certain, for, antecedent to any
consideration of the mind and apart from anyone's thinking, two white things are
really alike and this man is really the father of another. On the contrary, the
relation of the predicate to the subject in a sentence is a relation of reason,
which does not exist until after the consideration of the mind and as the result
of the mind's activity.

The predicamental relation requires a real basis in the subject and a real
terminus really distinct from this basis in the subject; this relation does not
perdure after the terminus disappears, and in this it differs from the
transcendental relation. The basis of the predicamental relation is the reason
for the reference or ordering. Thus, in the relation of paternity the man who
begets a son is the subject, the son is the terminus, to whom the father has a
reference, and generation is the basis of the relation, since the reason why the
father is referred to the son is the fact that he begot him.[205]

Whether The Predicamental Relation Is Really Distinct From Its Basis Or
Foundation

For example, whether the likeness of two white things is really distinct from
their whiteness, and paternity from generation.

Many Thomists, among them Capreolus, Cajetan, Ferrariensis, John of St.
Thomas, and Goudin, admit at least a modal real distinction between the relation
and its foundation or basis; Suarez denies the distinction and thus aligns
himself with the Nominalists. The Thomists prove their stand in the following
way. The predicamental relation is an accident whose whole being is to be
referred to something else. But the entity of the foundation is not pure order
to another but something absolute, as, for example, quantity, quality, and
action. Therefore the entity of the foundation of the relation is really
distinct from the predicamental relation. For this reason, Aristotle conceived
of quantity, quality, action, and relation as distinct predicaments.

Confirmation. The predicamental relation disappears with its terminus whereas
the entity of the foundation of the relation survives. When one of two similar
things, for instance, is destroyed, the relation to the other also disappears.
Moreover, even after the generation of the son, he remains the son of his
father.

Whether Existence Belongs To A Predicamental Relation Formally According To
Its Being In The Subject Or Its Being With Reference To Its Terminus

The relation's being in the subject (<esse in>) is not the foundation
of the relation but it is the relation itself in the general nature of an
accident and not under the special aspect of a relation. The reply of the
Thomists is that existence does not belong formally to a predicamental relation
according to its being with reference to its terminus (<<esse ad>>)
because according to this being with reference to another (<<esse
ad>>) the relation abstracts from existence and could be a relation of
reason. Existence, however, belongs to a predicamental relation according to its
being in a subject, that is, its "<inesse>," or its inherence in
the subject. Since, however, as we shall see below, in God the <esse in>
cannot be an accident, but must be the divine substance, it follows, according
to St. Thomas, that there is one being in the Trinity for the different divine
relations. Suarez, on the contrary, thought that a relation had its own proper
existence and therefore he taught that there were three relative existences in
God. Similarly he taught that there were two beings in Christ because he denied
the real distinction between the created essence and being. For St. Thomas there
was but one being for the three divine persons and one being in Christ.

This distinction between the <esse in> of a relation and its
<<esse ad>> is clearly explained by St. Thomas: "The relation
itself, which is nothing else than the reference of one creature to another, has
one kind of being inasmuch as it is an accident and another being inasmuch as it
is a relation or order to another. Inasmuch as it is an accident it has its
being in a subject, but not as it is a relation or an order, for as a relation
it has being exclusively with reference to another, a something passing over to
another and in some way assisting the thing to which it is related."[206]
Thus the <esse in>, which is something the relation has in common with all
accidents, gives title to reality to the relation's <<esse
ad>.>[207]

From various examples, especially in the supernatural order, we shall see
that this concept of relation is of great importance. In Christ the hypostatic
union is the real relation of the dependence of the humanity of Christ on the
person of the divine Word. "The hypostatic union is that relation which is
found between the divine and human natures... . This union is not really in God
but is only a relation of reason; but it really is in the human nature, which is
a kind of creature. Therefore it is proper to say that it (the hypostatic union)
is something created."[208]

Similarly, in the Blessed Virgin Mary the divine maternity is a real relation
to the person of the incarnate Word, and because of its terminus this real
relation belongs to the hypostatic order and transcends the order of grace.
Hence it is commonly held that the Blessed Virgin Mary was predestined to the
divine maternity before she was predestined to the fullness of glory and grace.
It should be noted, however, that the person of the Word does not acquire a real
relation to the Blessed Virgin but only a relation of reason because the
relation of God to creatures is only a relation of reason. So also St. Joseph's
great dignity of foster-father of the incarnate Word is a relation. Finally, our
adoptive sonship is a relation to God the author of grace; it is a participation
in the likeness of the eternal filiation of the only-begotten Son.

First Article: Whether There Are Real Relations In God

State of the question. It seems that there are no real relations in God and
that there are only relations of reason like the relation of identity between a
thing and itself, because the terms are not really distinct. Moreover, if a real
relation were found in God, it would be the relation of a principle to the
principled. But the relation of God to creatures as their principle is not a
real relation but one of reason, whereas the relation of creatures to God is
real. Neither does that relation which is founded on the intellectual procession
of the Word seem to be real since it does not precede the operation of the
intellect but follows it.

Reply. Nevertheless the reply is in the affirmative and is defined as of
faith. This is evident from the condemnation of Sabellius. According to the
Sabellian heresy, God is not really the Father and the Son, but only according
to our way of thinking. Against this heresy the Church has declared that God is
really the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in such a way that the Father is
not the Son but is really distinct from Him.[209] The Father is so called only
because of His paternity, which is a relation; the Son is so called because of
filiation, which is also a relation, as is also spiration. Therefore in God we
find the real relations of paternity, filiation, spiration, and, as we shall see
below, of active and passive spiration.

The major of this argument from authority is the affirmation of the dogma
against Sabellius. The minor is an analysis of the words, Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. As found in the Scriptures these nouns are relative: the Father is so
called with relation to the Son, and the Son with relation to the Father, and in
this way these two persons are really distinguished by the opposition of
relation.

This idea of relation was gradually developed by the Fathers; their teaching
became more and more explicit on the point that the divine persons are
distinguished among themselves by relations alone.[210] St. Gregory Nazianzen
said, "Father is not the name of the essence or of an action but it
indicates the relation which the Father has to the Son, or that which the Son
has to the Father."[211] Among the Greeks, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St.
John Damascene, and among the Latins, St. Augustine, St. Fulgentius, Boetius,
St. Isidore, and St. Anselm, employ similar language.[212]

In his work on the Trinity,[213] St. Augustine had already evolved a theory
of relations, as Tixeront points out,[214] explaining that the divine persons
are relations which are not something absolute like the divine essence and which
are not accidents. St. Augustine wrote: "These things are not said
according to the substance, because each one does not refer to Himself, but
these things are said mutually and to each other; they are not said according to
accidents, because that which is said to be the Father and what is said to be
the Son is something eternal and incommunicable. These things are said not as of
substances but as something relative, but the relative thing is nevertheless not
an accident, because it is not changeable.[215] Thus the Father is so called
with regard to the Son, the Son with regard to the Father, and the Holy Ghost
with regard to the Father and the Son.

This doctrine of the divine relations was clearly defined by the Eleventh
Council of Toledo in 675: "By the relative names of the persons, the Father
is referred to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Ghost is referred to
the other two persons, and when the three persons are spoken of in a relative
sense, we nevertheless believe in one nature and one substance... . For that
which is the Father is not referred to Himself but to the Son; and that which is
the Son is not referred to Himself but to the Father...; with reference to
themselves each person is said to be God." 18 In the Council of Florence
particularly the famous dogmatic principle, "In God all things are one
where there is no opposition of relation," was proclaimed.[216] At this
council, John, the theologian for the Latins, declared: "According to both
Greek and Latin doctors, it is relation alone that multiplies the persons in the
divine production, and it is called the relation of origin, which has two
characteristics: that from which another is and that which is from
another."[217] At this same council, the learned Cardinal Bessarion,
archbishop of Nicaea, declared: "No one is ignorant of the fact that the
personal names of the Trinity are relative."[218]

St. Thomas treated this question in several of his works.[219] From a study
of these various works it is clear how his understanding of the matter became
more sublime and more simple as he approached the pure intuition of truth.
Later, however, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the thinking of many
theologians, among them Durandus and others, became excessively complicated so
as to impede the contemplation of divine things.

This and the following articles can be reduced to this simple truth: the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are God; but the Father is not the Son, the
Son is not the Father, and the Holy Ghost is neither the Father nor the Son. In
this article St. Thomas proves from the processions that there are real
relations in God. His argument may be reduced to the following.

When anything proceeds from a principle of the same nature it is necessary
that both, namely, that which proceeds and that from which it proceeds, should
concur in the same order and have real references to each other. But the
processions in God take place in the identity of nature (preceding question).
Therefore it is necessary that according to the divine processions we accept
real relations, namely, of the Father to the Son, of the Son to the Father... .
On the other hand, when anything proceeds from God ad extra, such as a creature,
that which proceeds is not in the same order as God Himself, the two are not
mutually ordered to each other, and the creature alone depends on God, but God
does not depend on the creature nor is He ordered to the creature. Hence only
the creature has a real relation to God; and God in no way has a real relation
to the creature.

Reply to first objection. These real relations, however, do not inhere in God
as an accident inheres in a subject. This will be explained in the following
article, where it will be shown that in God the "being in" (<esse
in>) of the relations is substantial and not accidental.

Reply to second objection. Boetius merges the relations in God with the
relation of identity (a relation of reason alone) inasmuch as the divine
relations do not diversify the divine substance; but Boetius continued to accept
as true that the Father is not the Son and that they are opposed by the
opposition of real relation.[220]

Reply to third objection. God the Creator does not have a real relation to
creatures because the Creator and creatures are not in the same order and are
not ordered to each other. Creatures indeed are ordered to God upon whom they
depend, but God is not ordered to creatures. It is in the nature of the creature
to depend on God, but it is not in God's nature to produce creatures, since He
produced them most freely. On the other hand, the Father and the Son are of the
same order and are ordered to each other, just as in men active and passive
generation are in the same order and thus are the basis for real mutual
relations.

Reply to fourth objection. The relation of filiation in God follows the
operation of the divine intellect, but not as a logical entity such as the
distinction between the subject and predicate; it follows as something real,
namely, as the expressed word, which as the terminus of mental enunciation is
something real in the mind.

First doubt. Is the <<esse ad>> of a relation always real? The
reply is in the negative. The reason is that many relations are of reason only
and each of these relations has its <<esse ad>>; consequently the
<<esse ad>> as such is not necessarily a real being or a being of
the mind but may be either, depending on whether the foundation of the relation
and its <esse in> are real or beings of the mind only.

Second doubt. Are the relations in God real not only according to their
<esse in> but also according to their <<esse ad>?> The reply
is in the affirmative. The reason is that when the <esse in> is real the
<<esse ad>> is also real. Thus in man the relation of paternity to
the son is a real accident, existing in the father antecedent to the
consideration of our minds. If in God the <<esse ad>> were not real,
the real distinction between the persons, which is founded on the opposition of
real relation, would be destroyed. It is the reference to (respectus ad) alone
that causes the relative opposition.[221] The reason why the <<esse
ad>> is real is because the relation really exists in some subject in
accord with the real foundation of the relation independently of the
consideration of our mind. The <esse in> is the title to reality of the
<<esse ad>.> In the <De potentia>, St. Thomas gives the
following explanation. "The relation itself, which is nothing more than the
order of one creature to another, is one thing inasmuch as it is an accident and
something else inasmuch as it is a relation or an order. Inasmuch as it is an
accident it has its being in a subject, but not inasmuch as it is a relation or
an order, for as a relation it is order to another, as if passing over to
another and in some way assisting the related thing."[222]

Second Article: Whether A Relation In God Is The Same As His Essence

State of the question. After asking the question whether a thing is we ask
the question what it is. The difficulty arises from the fact that the relative
element, the "to another," is not understood as something substantial,
for then the essence of God would not be something substantial but relative.

The reply, however, is affirmative and of faith, namely, the relations in God
are actually the same as His essence, although they are distinguished by reason
from the essence. This truth was defined in the Council of Reims against Gilbert
Porretanus: "When we speak of the three persons, the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost, we say that they are one God and one substance. Conversely, we
confess that the divine substance is three persons."[223] "We believe
that there are no relations in God that are not God."[224]

In these propositions, as in every affirmative proposition, the verb
"is" affirms the real identity of the subject and the predicate, as,
for example, the Father is God and the paternity is the deity, because God is
His own deity and the Father is His own paternity.[225] The same teaching was
defined by the Fourth Lateran Council,[226] and the following proposition of
Eckard was condemned, "In God there can be no distinction and none can be
conceived."[227]

The most common opinion of theologians is that the divine relations are
distinguished from the divine essence only by reason with a foundation in
reality, that is, only virtually. To this the Thomists generally add that the
distinction is a minor virtual distinction after the manner of that which is
implicit and explicit inasmuch as our concept of the divine essence implicitly
contains the relations. Before considering St. Thomas' argument, we will briefly
explain the meaning of these terms.

A virtual distinction, or a distinction of reason with a foundation in
reality, may be minor or major. A major virtual distinction is after the manner
of that which excludes and that which is excluded. Such a distinction exists
between the genus and the differences extrinsic to it which the genus contains,
not implicitly, but only virtually. Thus animality may be without rationality,
and with regard to rationality it has a foundation in actuality as something
potential and perfectible.

A minor virtual distinction, however, is after the manner of those things
that are implicit and explicit. Thus subsisting being itself, according to our
concept, implicitly contains the divine attributes, but it does not have a
foundation in actuality for these attributes as something potential, or as
something imperfect and perfectible by the divine attributes, because subsisting
being, according to our concept, is pure act. For when we speak of subsisting
being we do not yet speak explicitly of mercy and justice. It must be noted,
however, that this minor virtual distinction is more than the verbal distinction
between Tullius and Cicero. We cannot equivalently use the names, divine
essence, divine mercy, or divine justice in the same way that we equivalently
use the names Tullius and Cicero. We cannot say, for instance, that God punishes
by His mercy and pardons by His justice.

Lastly, it may be recalled that Scotus held that the distinction between the
divine essence, the attributes and the relations was formal actual from the
nature of things, because the distinction, in his view, is not real since it is
not between one thing and another but between two formalities of the same thing.

To this the Thomists reply that this formal actual distinction based on the
nature of the thing either antecedes the consideration of our minds and then,
however small it is, it is real; or it does not antecede the consideration of
our minds, and then it is a distinction of reason with a foundation in the thing
or a virtual distinction. There is no middle point in the distinction between
what antecedes and what does not antecede the consideration of our minds.

After these preliminaries we shall consider how St. Thomas proved the
commonly accepted doctrine that the real relations in God are not really
distinct from the divine essence but are distinguished from it only by reason.

St. Thomas explained this proposition by two arguments: by the indirect
argument (sed contra) and the direct argument.

The indirect argument. Everything that is not the divine essence is a
creature. But the relations really belong to God. If therefore they are not the
divine essence, they are creatures; and the worship of latria cannot be offered
to the divine relations.

The direct argument. Whatever in created things has an accidental being in
another (<esse in>), when transferred to God has a substantial being in
another (<esse in>), because no accidents are found in God. But in created
things a relation is really distinguished from its subject solely because it has
an accidental being in another (<esse in>) from which it derives the
reality of its <<esse ad>> or reference to another. Therefore in God
a relation is not really distinct from its subject inasmuch as its <esse
in>, or being in another, is substantial from which is derived the reality of
its reference to another, its <<esse ad>.> The major is evident from
the fact that in God, who is pure act, there can be no accident perfecting
something potential and perfectible.[228] The minor is explained by the fact
that in creatures a relation places nothing real in the subject except so far as
it places in the subject that which is common to all accidents, namely, the
<esse in>, which is an accidental being really distinct from substance.
According to its own peculiar structure, a relation is not properly in a
subject, as are quantity and quality, but it is a reference to something else.

If therefore, for example, the relation of paternity is transferred to God
where the <esse in> will be substantial, the relation will not be really
distinct from the divine essence; it will be distinguished only by reason since
it expresses a reference to something else, namely, of the Father to the Son.
Therefore neither by the divine relations nor by the divine attributes is the
divine essence something potential and perfectible because of a foundation in
its nature. Hence the divine essence, as it is conceived by us, implicitly
contains the divine relations, from which it is distinguished by a minor virtual
distinction. By this latter term the Thomists have epitomized this present
article.

It must be carefully noted that what is the peculiar feature of a relation,
namely, the <<esse ad>>, does not properly inhere in the subject as
does the peculiar feature of the accident of quality. If the <<esse
ad>> properly inhered in the subject, there could be no relative
opposition between the real relations without there being at the same time
opposition in the very essence of God, which is impossible. This entire article
is reduced to this simple thought: the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy
Ghost is God, and the paternity is the deity because God is His own deity and
the Father is His own paternity. In all these statements the verb "is"
expresses the real identity of the subject and the predicate.

The difference between St. Thomas and Suarez.[229] The principle that
"in God all things are one and the same except where there is opposition of
relation" is not understood in the same way by St. Thomas and by Suarez
since they do not understand relation in the same way. For St. Thomas being
(esse) does not formally belong to accidental or predicamental relation
(paternity, for instance) according to its <<esse ad>,> because the
<<esse ad>> prescinds from existence; it is found also in a relation
of reason (in the relation of God to creatures, for example). Being, however,
belongs formally to an accidental relation according to its <esse in>,
namely, as it is an accident inhering (at least aptitudinally) in a real
subject. If the <esse in> is real, then the <<esse ad>> is
real, but it takes its title to reality not from itself but from the <esse
in.>[230]

But in God the <esse in> cannot be an accident, since God is pure act
and no accident is found in Him. Therefore in God the <esse in> of the
divine relations is identified with the one existence of the divine substance;
it is identified with subsisting being itself.[231] From this it follows that in
the Trinity the divine relations have the same <esse in> since they exist
by the one existence of the divine essence itself.[232] "Since a divine
person is the same as the divine nature, in the divine persons the being of the
person is not different from the being of the divine nature. Therefore the three
divine persons have but one being." Similarly in Christ there is one being
for the two natures because Christ is one person, and this presupposes a real
distinction between created essence and being.

Suarez, on the contrary, did not admit this real distinction and held that
there were two existences in Christ and three relative existences in the
Trinity. For Suarez the relations have their own proper existence even according
to their <<esse ad>.> He found it difficult to solve the objection
arising from the axiom that two things that are the same as a third are also the
same as each other. But the divine persons are the same as a third, namely, the
divine essence. Therefore they are the same as each other.

Suarez did not know how to solve this objection except by denying the major
with respect to God.[233] He was aware of St. Thomas' reply that those things
which are the same as a third are the same as each other unless there is present
the opposition of relation. But because he had a different concept of relation
he held that this convenient answer did not solve the difficulty since nothing
like this is found in creatures. Therefore he concluded that this axiom taken in
its most universal extension, prescinding from created and uncreated being, is
false for, while it is true in certain cases, that is, in creatures, it cannot
be inferred for the entire extension of being.

This is the same as saying that this axiom does not apply to God. But this
axiom is directly derived from the principle of contradiction or identity, which
patently must be applicable to God analogically because it is the law of being
as being, the most universal law therefore, apart from which there is nothing
but absurdity, which would be unthinkable.

The principal difference between Suarez and St. Thomas is that for Suarez the
<<esse ad>> of a relation is real by reason of itself, just as he
held that the created essence is actual by reason of itself and is therefore not
really distinct from its existence. Suarez did not conceive being other than
that which is, not as that by which a thing is. He did not admit a real
distinction between essence, either of a created substance or accident, and
being. This is the foundation of the difference. Whether he wished it or not,
Suarez multiplied the absolute in God, and therefore the objection based on the
principle of identity remained unanswerable.[234]

Solution Of The Objections

1. What did St. Augustine mean when he contended that the <ad aliquid>
of the relation was not intended to refer to the substance?

Reply. St. Augustine's meaning was that the <ad aliquid> is not
predicated of God as something absolute but as something relative, but he did
not say that the divine relations are really distinct from the substance. In
several places he declared that in God the relations are not accidents.[235] St.
Thomas points out that in God there are only two predicaments, substance and
relations, and the <esse in> of the relations is substantial. We are
dealing here not with a transcendental relation but with a predicamental
relation (paternity, filiation, etc.), whose <esse in> or "being
in" in God, however, is substantial.

2. The term, "inor virtual distinction," is the happiest expression
for the relations as they are in God, because the Deity as conceived by our
minds actually and implicitly contains the relations.

3. In reply to the third objection, St. Thomas shows that it does not follow
from the preceding that the divine essence is something relative.[236]

First doubt. Whether the Deity, not as conceived by us but as it is in itself
and is seen by the blessed, contains the relations explicitly or only
implicitly.

Reply. The Deity contains the relations explicitly because the virtual
distinction is a distinction of reason subsequent to the consideration of our
minds, and this distinction is not found in the divine essence so as to be seen
by God and the blessed. Similarly the divine nature as imperfectly conceived by
us contains the divine attributes implicitly, since we gradually deduce the
attributes from the divine essence; but as it is in itself, the Deity explicitly
contains the attributes. The blessed in heaven have no need of deduction to know
the divine attributes; they see them intuitively as they are formally and
eminently in God, not only as virtually eminently, as is the case with the mixed
perfections.

In rejecting Scotus' formal actual distinction between the Deity and the
relations, Cajetan explains: "There is in God actually, or in the order of
reality, only one being, which is not purely absolute or purely relational,
neither mixed nor composite, or resulting from either of these, but most
eminently and formally possessing that which is relational and that which is
absolute. So in the formal order, or the order of formal reasons, in Himself,
not in our mode of speaking, there is in God only one formal reason or essence.
This is neither purely absolute nor purely relational, neither purely
communicable nor purely incommunicable, but most eminently and formally
containing both that which is absolutely perfect and that which the relational
Trinity demands. We are in error, however, whenever we proceed from the absolute
and relational to God because we imagine that the distinction between the
absolute and the relational is prior to the divine nature. The complete opposite
is true, for the divine essence is prior to all being and all of its
differences; it is above being, above one, etc."[237]

And yet the Deity as an essence is really communicated to the Son and the
Holy Ghost without any communication of paternity or filiation, just as in the
triangle the first angle constructed communicates its whole surface to the other
angles without communicating itself. The danger of agnosticism does not arise in
this statement; such danger would be present, however, if we said that the
divine relations and attributes were in God virtually and eminently, like mixed
perfections, and not eminently formally. This doctrine may be reduced to this
simple thought: the Father is God, and in this proposition the verb
"is" expresses the real identity of the subject and predicate.[238]

Second doubt. Can we safeguard the idea of God as the most pure, most simple,
and infinite act if we admit the formal-actual distinction?

Reply. The Thomists reply in the negative.[239] In this hypothesis the divine
essence is conceived as having a foundation in itself that is in potency to the
relations, that is actuable by the relations, as by something extraneous, like
the genus of animality which is actuable by an extraneous specific difference.
But it is repugnant to the most pure act that it be conceived as having a basis
in itself for further realization; this would be repugnant to the simplicity and
infinity of God. In this way the Thomists have adhered to Cajetan's explanation;
other equivalent expressions may be found in Billuart's exposition of this
article.

Third doubt. Is the concept of the divine essence more extensive than the
concept of paternity or of any other relation taken separately?

The reply is in the affirmative, because the Deity as conceived by us
implicitly contains the idea of filiation, but the idea of filiation is not even
implicitly contained in the concept of paternity, except correlatively since it
is opposed to paternity.

Fourth doubt. Does Deity belong to our explicit concept of the person of the
Father?

The reply is in the affirmative, for while paternity is only implicitly
contained in our concept of the Deity, Deity is explicitly contained in the
paternity because Deity is more extensive than paternity, including also
filiation. Similarly, in created beings, being is explicit in the concept of
substance, while substance is not explicitly in the concept of being because
being is more extensive than substance.

Scotus' objection. If Deity is conceived by us as containing paternity in
act, it follows that in begetting the Son the Father communicates paternity to
Him. Then the Son would be the Father. Or if paternity is not communicated to
the Son, then the Deity is not communicated to Him. Further, Scotus argued that
if being implicitly contains substance and accidents, then whenever anything is
predicated both substance and accidents are predicated.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: if the Deity is conceived by us as
explicitly containing paternity, I concede; as implicitly containing paternity,
I sub-distinguish: both implicitly and copulatively, I concede; implicitly and
disjunctively, I deny. For the Deity is disjunctively either in the Father, or
in the Son, or in the Holy Ghost. A virtual distinction is enough to safeguard
the truth of the propositions about the communicability of the nature without
the communication of paternity, just as it suffices to say that God punishes by
His justice but not by His mercy. In the same way the concept of being contains
substance and accidents implicitly, not copulatively but disjunctively, and
therefore it does not follow that substance is accident.

Many difficulties are solved in this manner, namely, how it is the Father who
begets and not the essence with which the Father is really identified; how each
divine person is really God and still not the other persons, which are really
implicitly included in the Deity.

I insist. But if the Deity, as it is in itself and is clearly seen by the
blessed, explicitly contains the paternity, it follows that the Father in
begetting the Son communicates paternity to Him, and thus the Son is the Father
or He is not God.

Reply. This would be true if in the eminent being of the Deity the absolute
and the relative, the communicable and the incommunicable, would be identified
to such an extent as to be destroyed, this I concede; otherwise, I deny. Indeed,
the absolute communicable and the incommunicable relative are found in God in a
formally pre-eminent manner, just as mercy and justice in God are identified
without being destroyed, since they are in God not only virtually (like the
seven colors in white light) but also formally and eminently. Here is the
mystery of the divine pre-eminence. We therefore rightly conceive the divine
essence as being communicated to the Son together with all the absolute
essential things which it contains and which are communicable, without any
communication of the relative (paternity) because of the opposition to the
terminus to which the essence is communicated. Thus in the triangle the first
angle communicates its entire surface to the second and third angles but not
itself.

In a word, the Father communicates the divine essence to the Son with regard
to everything except where the opposition of relation intervenes, because a
relative cannot be communicated to its correlative opposite. This statement is
in accord with Cajetan's explanation: "In God (as He is in Himself) there
is but one formal reason, neither purely absolute, nor purely relative, nor
purely communicable, nor purely incommunicable, but eminently and formally
containing both whatever is of absolute perfection and whatever the relational
Trinity demands."[240] Cajetan declared also: "It remains that (God)
is both communicable and incommunicable."[241]

Fifth doubt. What is the foundation of the relations of paternity and
filiation?

Reply. In created beings the foundation is active and passive generation;
this is also true proportionately of God. It should be noted that the <esse
in> of the relation is not the foundation of the relation because the
<esse in> is something common to all accidents, expressing at the same
time the existence of the accident, for the being of the accident is the
<esse in> at last aptitudinally.

The foundation of paternity as a relation is active generation, and the
foundation of the relation of filiation is passive generation, that is, the
actual procession. Similarly, spiration is the foundation of the relations
between the Holy Ghost and the Father and the Son, who spirate in one active
spiration.

Sixth doubt. Whether the divine relations (or persons) have their own proper
relative existences, or whether they exist by the one absolute existence of the
essence.

Reply. In opposition to Scotus and Suarez, the Thomists and many other
theologians reply in the negative. This reply is based on many texts of St.
Thomas; for example, "Since the divine person is the same as the divine
nature, the being of the person is not different from the being of the nature.
Therefore the three divine persons have but one being; they would have a triple
being if in them the being of the nature were other than the being of the
persons."[242]

In these texts St. Thomas is clearly speaking of the being of existence and
not the being of the essence, particularly in the passage where he inquires
whether there is one being in Christ although there are two natures, and answers
in the affirmative.[243]

In explaining this answer to Scotus and Suarez we may say that the existence
of the relation is nothing more than its <esse in.> But, as we have said,
the <esse in> of the relations in God is substantial, the same as the
being of the divine nature. Therefore the divine relations do not have their own
existences. Just as in God there is not a triple intelligence nor a triple will,
so all the more there is no triple being, for in God all things are one and the
same except where there is the opposition of relation.

This teaching is confirmed by the Athanasian Creed, which declares, "not
three uncreated,... but one uncreated." If there were three uncreated
existences besides the absolute existence common to the three persons, there
would be three uncreated beings, not only adjectively but substantively, because
the form and the subject would be multiplied. We would then have three entities
having three uncreated existences. Scotus and Suarez, therefore, are in some
danger of tritheism. Fundamentally this is why Suarez was unable to solve the
objection arising from the principle of identity: those things which are equal
to a third are equal to each other. By multiplying being in God, Suarez
multiplied the absolute in God and placed in jeopardy the principle that in God
all things are one and the same except where there is the opposition of
relation.

Further confirmation is had from the fact that in God essence and being are
the same. But the essence is common to the three persons. Therefore being is
also common to all three. Being is communicated together with the nature because
it is completely identified with the nature. The divine nature is subsisting
being itself according to the Scriptures, "am who am."[244] If the
same intelligence and will are communicated, all the more the same existence is
communicated.

Further, relative existences would be superfluous, for that which is already
in existence does not need further existence; by the first existence a being is
beyond nothingness and beyond its causes (if it has a cause). To say that what
is already beyond nothingness and its causes is once again placed beyond causes
and nothingness is to imply a contradiction. It would also imply a contradiction
to have two ultimate realities of the same order, for neither would be the
ultimate. Existence, however, is the ultimate reality of a thing. When the
Fathers said that to be God was different from being the Father, they understood
this being God with respect to Himself and the being the Father with respect to
some one else. It does not follow from this that there are several existences in
God.

Objection. Existence is nothing more than being in act. But the relations are
really in act as distinct from the essence. Therefore they have their own
existences.

Reply. The Thomists deny the major, for existence is not the thing itself but
the actuality of the thing by which it is placed beyond nothingness and its
causes. In God, however, essence and being are the same, and since the essence
is common to the three persons the divine existence is also common to them. The
relations, therefore, are truly in act, but they are so by the absolute
existence of the essence.

Objection. All production terminates with existence.

Reply. I distinguish the major: the production of a contingent being
terminates in the production of a new existence, I concede; but communication
terminates in an existence that is not new but in an existence that is
communicated to the person who proceeds. So in some way the uncreated being of
the Word is communicated to the assumed humanity since there is only one
existence in Christ; so also the being of the separated soul is communicated to
the body in the resurrection because there is only one substantial existence in
man. Scotus and Suarez, however, deny the real distinction between created
essence and being and therefore they multiply substantial being in man,
assigning one to the body and one to the soul. They also declare that there are
two beings in Christ and three relative existences in the Trinity.

I insist. Each thing that is distinct from others has its own existence. But
the divine persons are distinct from one another. Therefore they have their own
existences.

Reply. Each thing has its own existence, either proper or common, I concede;
that the existence is always proper, I deny. Thus the humanity of Christ does
not have its own proper existence, and in us the body does not have its proper
existence distinct from the existence of the soul. Our bodies exist by the
existence of the soul, which is spiritual. It is not repugnant, therefore, that
in God the relations, whose <esse in> is substantial, exist by the
existence of the divine nature itself.

I insist. Therefore in God the Father refers to Himself and not to another
and not to the Son.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: the Father refers to Himself with regard
to His <esse in>, I concede; with regard to His <esse ad>, I deny.

Final objection. Besides the absolute subsistence in God there are three
relative subsistences or personalities; therefore there should be besides the
absolute existence three relative existences.

Reply. I deny the consequence. The difference arises from the fact that the
absolute subsistence confers only the perseity of independence but not the
perseity of incommunicability; the three relative subsistences are not
superfluous since they are required for incommunicability. On the other hand,
the absolute existence, communicated with the nature, places the persons beyond
nothingness, so that relative existences are superfluous, as was said above.

Seventh doubt. Whether the divine relations by reason of their <esse
ad> add some relative perfection to the absolute perfection of the divine
essence virtually distinct from it.

State of the question. It is most certain that the divine relations (which
are, as we shall see below, the divine persons) are most perfect since they are
identified with the divine essence, which is infinite subsisting perfection
itself. Thus the divine relations are necessarily loved by God and must be
accorded the adoration of latria on our part. The question is whether the
relations by reason of their <esse ad> add some relative perfection,
virtually distinct from the absolute perfection of the divine essence, which
they include.

The reply is in the negative. This reply is at least the more probable one
and is held by such Thomists as Capreolus, Cajetan, Ferrariensis, the
Salmanticences, Gonet, and Billuart. But some Thomists (John of St. Thomas,
Contenson, and Bancel) hold the contrary opinion.

1. Proof from authority. In his work on the Trinity, St. Augustine says:
"The Father is good, the Son is good, the Holy Ghost is good; but there are
not three good, only one is good. If goodness and perfection are actually
multiplied in the three divine persons, they could be said to be three good and
three perfect persons not only adjectively but also substantively because what
these words signify both materially and formally would be multiplied inasmuch as
there would be three relative perfections really distinct from one another.[245]

St. Thomas declared: "Paternity is a dignity of the Father as is the
essence of the Father, for it is an absolute dignity and pertains to the
essence. Just as, therefore, the same essence which in the Father is paternity
and in the Son is filiation, so the same dignity which in the Father is
paternity is filiation in the Son."[246] So analogically in the triangle,
the one surface which is the surface of the first angle is the surface of the
second and third angles; no relative surfaces are found besides the absolute and
common surface.

Billuart and others rightly point out that in these words St. Thomas not only
openly asserts our conclusion but proves it, since the dignity or perfection of
the Father is absolute and pertains to the essence.

2. Proof from theology. A thing is not good or perfect except inasmuch as it
exists or implies an order to being. But the divine relations indeed exist
according to their <esse in>, but according to their <esse ad> they
are not anything but only in reference to something.[247] Therefore by reason of
their <esse ad> the relations do not add a relative perfection virtually
distinct from the absolute, infinite perfection of the essence. In other words,
the existence, and the perfection too, of the predicamental relation, with which
we are now dealing, has reference to the subject and not to the terminus, and
therefore the <esse ad> does not imply an order to existence, but
prescinds from existence. For this reason it is possible to have certain
relations which are not real and are of the mind only, namely, those whose
<esse in> is not real.[248]

Here it is that the divine relations differ from the divine attributes, which
by their nature look to the essence and have an order, not to something else,
but to themselves. Thus the attributes are called absolute or absolutely simple
perfections, which it is better to have than not to have. So the divine will is
an absolute perfection, virtually distinct from the perfection of God's being
and from subsisting intellect itself, although all these are identified without
being destroyed in the eminence of the Deity, in whom they are found not only
virtually and eminently but formally and eminently.

Corollary. The divine relations, taken formally according to their <esse
ad>, are not absolutely simple perfections properly so called because,
although they do not involve imperfection, it is not better to have them than
not to have them; their <esse ad> is a pure reference, prescinding from
perfection and imperfection. So also in God the free act of creation (I am not
speaking here of freedom but of the free act) is not an absolutely simple
perfection, since God is not more perfect because He created the universe.[249]
God was not improved because from eternity He willed to create the world; to
create the world is indeed something befitting, but not to have created is
nevertheless not unbefitting.

On this point there is agreement, but Cajetan offered a formula that was not
acceptable to other Thomists: "For God to will other beings is a voluntary
and entirely free perfection whose opposite would not be an
imperfection."[250] He expresses it better when he says: "To
communicate oneself implies perfection not in him who communicates but in those
to whom the communication is made."[251]

In the formula, rejected by other Thomists, as we have noted elsewhere,[252]
Cajetan seems to confuse a modal proposition referring to the saying with the
modal proposition referring to the thing. It is correct to say that it is
befitting that God created, in the sense that it is not unbefitting not to have
created; but it is incorrect to say that the free volition to create is a new
free perfection in God (virtually distinct from His essential perfection), even
though the opposite is not an imperfection. Otherwise God would be more perfect
because He willed to create the universe, as Leibnitz wrongly concluded. These
observations should throw some light on this present question, namely, that the
divine relations with regard to their <esse ad> do not add a new
perfection.

Confirmation from the following incongruities.

1. Otherwise it would follow that the Father lacked one perfection, namely,
filiation, and also passive spiration. None of the divine persons would
therefore be perfect, none would have every perfection, and none would be God.
For God must have all absolutely simple perfections, those perfections which it
is better to have than not to have.

2. It would follow that all three persons would be more perfect, at least
extensively, than any one person, and against this St. Augustine declared:
"The Father is as great by Himself as are the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost together."[253]

3. The Father and the Son would be more perfect than the Holy Ghost because
besides their proper perfection they would have the perfection of active
spiration, whereas the Holy Ghost would have but one perfection, passive
spiration.

Objection. The Father does not have filiation formally but eminently because
of the divine essence. Hence filiation is properly an absolutely simple
perfection.

Reply. In that case the Father would not have any absolutely simple
perfection formally, and that would be improper.

I insist. The Father has filiation compensatively and terminatively, if not
constitutively.

Reply. In that case the Father would not be infinitely perfect; and the Holy
Ghost would be less perfect because He would have only one relative perfection
and not two. Hence He would not even be compensatively perfect.

Another objection. A relative perfection implies a subject that is
perfectible in order to something else, as we see in the case of potencies or
faculties and habits. Hence it is wrong to say that a relation with regard to
its <esse ad> prescinds from perfection. For the perfection of our
intellect arises from its relation to being. Such was Contenson's argument.

Reply. Contenson, as Billuart pointed out, here confuses the transcendental
relation of a faculty to its specific object with the predicamental relation,
namely, paternity or filiation, which are pure references to a pure terminus and
therefore do not consider the subject by reason of itself but by reason of the
terminus.

Final difficulty. The created personality implies a perfection really and
modally distinct from the perfection of the nature. Therefore for an equal or
stronger reason the divine personalities, which are constituted by subsisting
relations, imply a perfection distinct from the nature.

Reply. In agreement with many others I distinguish the antecedent. The
created personality is a perfection with regard to the perseity of independence,
I concede; with regard to the perseity of incommunicability, I deny, because it
is not a perfection not to be able to communicate to another. The divine
personalities confer incommunicability but not the perseity of independence,
which is common to all three persons.[254]

This should suffice in explanation of St. Thomas' second article, in which he
teaches that the real relations in God are not distinguished really from the
essence, but are only virtually distinct. This truth can be succinctly stated
as, "The Father is God." In this statement, as in every affirmative
proposition, the verb "is" expresses the actual identity of the
subject and the predicate. In other words: the Deity as known by us contains the
divine relations implicitly; the Deity as it is in itself contains them
explicitly, or formally and eminently without the formal-actual distinction
proposed by Scotus. This teaching implies no leaning to agnosticism; such danger
would arise if we said that the real relations were in God not formally and
eminently but only virtually and eminently like mixed perfections, as when we
say that God is angry.

Indeed the divine relations are in God like the divine attributes, to a
greater degree than colors are contained in white because the seven colors are
contained in white only virtually and not formally. White is not blue; but the
Deity is true, it is good, it is also the paternity, although the Deity is
communicated by the Father to the Son without a communication of paternity.

Third Article: Whether The Relations In God Are Really Distinguished From One
Another

State of the question. This question seems to have been solved if we
correctly understand the propositions, "The Father is not the Son,"
"The Holy Ghost is not the Father nor the Son," for in these negative
propositions the verb "is not" denies the identity of the subject and
the predicate, and therefore there is a real distinction, one that precedes the
consideration of our mind. The question, however, requires further examination
because it is not sufficiently clear how the persons are constituted by the
relations and because, as we have said in the preceding article, the real
relations in God are not really distinct from the essence.

From this arise certain difficulties, which are proposed at the beginning of
this third article.

1. Those things equal to a third are equal to each other; but the divine
relations are equal to a third, namely, the essence; therefore they are equal to
each other. This is the classic objection of the rationalists against the
mystery of the Trinity, which is sometimes examined by Thomists in the
introduction to this treatise.

2. Paternity and filiation are, of course, distinguished mentally from the
essence, as are goodness and omnipotence. Therefore, like goodness and
omnipotence, paternity and filiation are not really distinguished from each
other.

3. In God there is no real distinction except by reason of origin. But one
relation does not appear to originate from another. Therefore the relations are
not really distinct.

Reply. The reply is nevertheless in the affirmative, namely, in God a real
distinction exists between the relations opposed to each other.

This teaching pertains to faith, since faith teaches that there is a real and
true Trinity in which the Father is not the Son, and the Holy Ghost is not the
Father or the Son. The Council of Florence declared: "In God all things are
one except where there is opposition of relation."[255] At the same
council, John, the Latins' theologian, declared: "According to both Latin
and Greek doctors it is relation alone that multiplies persons in the divine
productions; this relation is called relation of origin, in which only two are
concerned: the one from whom another is and the one who is from
another."[256] Also at this Council, Cardinal Bessarion, the most learned
theologian of the Greeks, averred, "No one is ignorant of the fact that the
personal names of the Trinity are relative."[257]

In his argument St. Thomas quoted Boetius. Other Fathers who might be quoted
are St. Anselm,[258] St. Augustine,[259] St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of
Nyssa, and St. John Damascene, who said: "The Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost are distinct and yet they are one."[260]

In the body of the article St. Thomas explains this doctrine of faith by an
analysis of the concept of relative opposition as follows.

The nature of a real relation consists in the reference of one thing to
another, according to which something is relatively opposed to another and the
two are therefore really distinct.

But in God we have real relations opposed to one another, namely, paternity,
filiation, and spiration. Below it will be explained that active spiration,
which is opposed to passive spiration, is not opposed to paternity and
filiation. Therefore in God there is real distinction according to these real
relations opposed to one another.

The major explains something that is already admitted confusedly by the
common sense of man and by natural reason, namely, that relative things,
inasmuch as the Father and the Son are opposed to each other, are really
distinct, since no one begets himself. This analysis of the ideas of relation,
opposition, and distinction is found in Aristotle's Postpredicamenta, where he
distinguishes the various kinds of opposition.

Opposition properly so called is a definite and determined repugnance;
opposition improperly so called is between disparate things, as between
different species of things. Thus opposition properly so called requires a
determined extreme, to which something is repugnant, as heat to cold, blindness
to vision. Proper opposition, therefore, calls for two conditions: the
distinction between the extremes and some determined repugnance between these
extremes.

Opposition may be of four kinds: relative, contrary, privative, and
contradictory. Following Goudin in his work on logic, we may present the
division of opposition as follows.

(diagram page 136)

Opposition
between being and non-being
by pure negation: contradictory opposition, e.g., man and no man, knowledge and
nescience
by privation in a suitable subject: privative opposition, e.g. sight and
blindness, knowledge and ignorance
between being and being
expelling each other from a subject: contrary opposition, e.g., virtue and vice,
truth and error
based on mutual reference: relative opposition, e.g., between father and son

Thus, as is commonly taught, relative opposition is the weakest of all; in
this kind of opposition one extreme does not destroy the other, rather one
requires the other. Hence it can be attributed to God because it does not imply
any privation of being but only distinction with a reference, as St. Thomas
pointed out.[261] Thus the Father and the Son are really distinct by relative
opposition. Relative opposition may be defined as the repugnance between two
things arising from the fact that they refer to each other.

On the other hand, contradictory opposition is the strongest of all because
one extreme completely destroys the other; not even the subject survives as in
privative opposition, nor the genus as in contrary opposition, in which, for
example, virtue and vice oppose each other in the same genus of habit. Thus
contradictory opposition is the cause of the others and is to a certain extent
mingled with them. In a sense we may say that the Father is not the Son, and
virtue is not vice.

It is clear that in these four kinds of opposition, the word
"opposition" is used not univocally but analogically, and the analogy
is not only metaphorical but proper. The primal analogy contains the greatest
opposition, that is, contradictory opposition. Hence it is not surprising that
contradictory opposition participates in the other kinds of opposition.[262]

Reply to the first and second difficulties. "Those things which are
equal to a third are equal to each other," I distinguish: if they are equal
to the third actually and mentally and there is no mutual opposition, I concede;
if they are equal to a third actually and not mentally and there exists relative
opposition, I deny.

But the divine relations are equal to a third, the divine essence, this I
distinguish: they are equal actually but not mentally, and some of the relations
are mutually opposed, although they are not opposed to the third, this I
concede. Otherwise, I deny.

To put it analogically, according to St. Thomas, transitive action, taken at
least terminatively, and passion are really the same as movement, but they are
really distinct from each other because of the opposition of relation, since
action is the movement as coming from the agent and passion is the movement as
received in the recipient.

So also in an equilateral triangle the three equal angles are actually the
same as a third, namely, the surface of the triangle, but they are really
distinguished from each other because of relative opposition.

First doubt. Are action and passion really and modally distinct from
movement?

Reply. According to the common opinion of Thomists they are. Aristotle,
however, did not consider precisely this question, and St. Thomas makes
reference to his words, which, although they are somewhat vague, throw some
light on the present problem, as does the reference to the triangle. Even though
the illustration of the triangle may be deficient, the principle enunciated by
St. Thomas is nevertheless true. We should remember that it is not necessary for
the theologian to show that this objection is evidently false; it is enough if
he shows that the objection is not necessary and has no cogency. Thus the
revealed mystery remains intact.

Second doubt. Is the principle," hose things equal to a third are
equal..." to be understood as a formal predication?

Reply. In order to understand this principle we must distinguish between
formal predication and material predication. Thus it is only materially true to
say that the divine mercy and the divine justice are the same, because they are
not really distinct, and by reason of their subject or matter they are in a
sense the same, just as when we say that the humanity of Peter is his
individuality. We have here a material predication because the humanity and the
individuality are not actually distinct, and by reason of the matter and the
subject they are the same. But in these instances we are not uttering a formal
predication in which the predicate belongs to the subject according to its
formal nature. For example, it does not belong to the divine mercy to punish;
the divine mercy pardons, condones, and it is the divine justice that punishes,
although these two perfections are really the same, that is, materially the same
but not formally.

The laws of the syllogism, however, are not verified except in formal
predications, since the process of reasoning does not deal with things in
themselves but through the mediation of our concepts. Therefore if we wish to
conclude the identity of two things by our reasoning, we must consider these two
things from the same formal aspect. Otherwise we do not obey the first law of
the syllogism: the term must be threefold: middle, major, and minor. According
to this law the middle term must be perfectly distributed, that is, taken in the
same sense in the major and the minor. Hence, for example, the following
argument is not valid because the major is only a material predication: in God
mercy is the same as justice; but justice is the principle of punishment;
therefore God inflicts punishment through His mercy. The argument is false
because in God mercy and justice are not the same formally although they are the
same materially. Again, in the Trinity it is conceded that the Father and the
Son are actually the same as the divine essence, but they are not the same
formally. Moreover the Father and the Son are relatively opposed to each other,
but they are not opposed to the essence. It is clear, therefore, that the
following syllogism is not valid: This God is the Father, but this God is the
Son, therefore the Son is the Father. Nor is the following true: This divine
essence is the paternity, but this divine essence is the filiation, therefore
filiation is paternity. In these syllogisms we have merely material
predications, and the form of the syllogism is not observed.

Objection. The force of this reply is invalidated when, against Scotus, we
say that in God there is not only one being but one formal eminent reason,
namely, the Deity, and thus in God every predication is not only material but
formal.

Reply. It is true that in God there is but one formal reason as far as God
Himself is concerned, but not with regard to us.[263] In other words, the
objection would be valid if the Deity identified with itself the attributes and
relations without preserving their formal reasons; but the objection has no
force if these formal reasons are still found to be in the eminence of the
Deity. In God, of course, the relations are not only virtually and eminently, as
the seven colors are in white, but formally and eminently; for whereas blue is
not white, God is true, good, paternity, and filiation. Formal predication,
therefore, must be carefully distinguished from material predication.[264]

In God the formal reasons or aspects of the attributes and relations are
identified without being destroyed; they are perfectly preserved in spite of
their real identity with the essence. Indeed, they do not exist in the purest
state except in this identification. Thus subsisting being itself must be not
only intelligible in act but actually understood in act, and it is therefore
identified with subsisting understanding. The proper reason or nature of a
relation is to be opposed to its correlative and to be distinguished from it.

This is possible because of the eminence of the Deity. Analogically, the body
of Christ is present to many consecrated hosts, but these hosts are not present
to each other. At first sight this seems to contradict the principle that those
things which are united to a third are united to each other, or those things
that are present to a third are present to each other. Thus two bodies cannot be
present in the same space without being present to each other.

But this is not true if there is a third member which, remaining the same, is
in many distant places as if not being in that place. Thus the same body of
Christ is present in the manner of substance in many distant hosts. So in the
natural order the head and the foot are present to the same soul and yet they
are not parts present to each other and close to each other.

Second objection. A real distinction is not founded on that which prescinds
from reality. But the <esse ad> of a relation prescinds from reality.
Therefore it does not provide a basis for the real distinction of relations or
of the persons.

Reply. I distinguish the major: a real distinction is not founded on that
which prescinds from reality and is not real, I concede; on that which is real,
I deny. I contradistinguish the minor in the same sense and I deny the
consequence and the consequent. The <esse ad> is said to prescind from
reality inasmuch as it may be either in a real relation or a relation of reason;
but this <esse ad> in a real relation is real, not formally because of
itself but because of the real <esse in>, which is common to all
accidents. Thus in created beings the <esse ad> of the relation of
paternity is something real and not something of the mind; both the father and
the son therefore are necessarily distinct, since no one begets himself. The
real relations in God are really distinct more as relations than as real,
because as relations they are opposed to each other and as real they have the
same <esse in> since their <esse in> is not accidental but
substantial. Hence in God there are four real relations, as we shall see below,
but not four relative realities as if there were four actions, for example. We
shall also see below that of these four real relations active spiration is not
really distinguished from paternity and filiation because it is not opposed to
them.

Third doubt. Why is not the <esse ad> of a real relation real because
of itself, as Suarez taught?

Reply. Because, as St. Thomas says,[265] a real relation formally as a
relation is not something but to something, and therefore there can be relations
that are not real, whose <esse in> is not real. On the other hand there is
no such thing as quantity or quality mentally. Suarez, however, held that the
<esse ad> of a relation is real because of itself, just as he held that
the created essence is actual because of itself and is therefore not really
distinct from its existence. Suarez thought of being (ens) only as that which is
and not as that by which a thing is, whereas for St. Thomas the essence is that
by which a thing is in a certain species. Hence Suarez concluded that the
relations of reason (mental relations) are not true relations.[266] From this he
went so far as to infer that the divine relations have their own relative
existence and perfection, virtually distinct from the infinite perfection of the
essence. In this way Suarez to some extent inclined to Scotus' teaching on the
formal distinction. It will be seen therefore that the Father is lacking some
perfection, namely, filiation and passive spiration. Now it becomes very
difficult to safeguard the unity and absolute simplicity of the divine nature,
just as when the Greeks in their treatise on the Trinity began with the three
persons rather than with a study of the divine nature.

Thus Suarez was not able to reply to the principal objections against the
mystery of the Trinity as the Thomists were.[267] How was Suarez to solve the
objection: "Those things equal to a third are equal to each other"? At
a loss in answering this objection, Suarez declared that the principle of
identity (or contradiction), if taken in complete abstraction and analogy of
being, prescinding from created and uncreated being, from both finite and
infinite, is false. According to Suarez this principle is true inductively only
in created beings, and the truth of the principle arises only within the limits
of created being. It is a law of finite being, not an analogical law of being
itself in common. Henceforth the theologian could not argue about the divine
perfections because his argument is based on the principle of identity or
contradiction. This is pure agnosticism. According to our teaching, to say that
the principle of identity or contradiction is not verified analogically in the
mystery of the Trinity is to say that this mystery is absurd, not above reason
but opposed to reason. This much we can say: that most eminent mode according to
which this principle is verified in the Trinity cannot be positively known by us
here on earth; it can be known only negatively and relatively.

Another difference arises between St. Thomas and Suarez from the fact that
for St. Thomas the three persons have only one being since, as it is commonly
expressed, the being of an accident is being in another.[268] But in God the
<esse in> of the relations is substantial and is therefore identified with
the divine essence, which is therefore unique. For Suarez, on the contrary, who
proceeded from other principles of being, the essence, the being, and the
relations are three relative existences in God.[269]

The doctrine of St. Thomas, as Del Prado shows, "Perfectly preserves the
supreme simplicity of the divine being because in God there is but one being;
the real relations, on the one hand, do not make a composition with the essence,
and on the other hand they really distinguish the persons. From this it follows
that in the three divine persons there is one divinity, equal glory, co-eternal
majesty, and the same absolute perfection. No perfection is found in one person
that does not exist in the other." Del Prado continues: "Those who
like Suarez deny the real composition of being and essence in creatures are
forced to place three beings in God, and they must place in one person a
perfection that is not in another, nor can they solve the difficulty arising
from the principle of identity."[270] The difference between St. Thomas and
Suarez has its roots in their basic philosophy and in their positions about the
real distinction between essence and being in creatures. Suarez, as we have
said, whether he wishes to or not, multiplies something absolute in God, namely,
being, and therefore the objection based on the principle of identity remains
unsolved.[271]

Fourth Article: Whether There Are In God Only Four Real Relations

State of the question. Besides paternity, filiation, active and passive
spiration, why do we not admit the real relations of equality and similitude?
Scotus admitted these other relations. It appears, however, that there are only
three real relations just as there are only three divine persons, for the
persons are constituted by subsisting relations.

Reply. St. Thomas replied that there are four real relations in God, and this
is the common opinion of theologians in opposition to Scotus and the Scotists.

The proof in the body of the article is the following.

Real relations are founded either on quantity, which is not found in God, or
on action and passion, and in God there are only two actions ad intra,
intellection and love, from which the two processions derive.[272] But each
procession is the basis for two relations, one of which is that of the
proceeding from the principle and the other the principle itself. Therefore
there are in God only four real relations: paternity, filiation, and the two
relations founded on the procession of love, called active spiration and the
passive procession or spiration, which is rather quasi-passive.

St. Thomas says below: "Although there are four relations in God, one of
these, active spiration, is not separate or distinct from the persons of the
Father and the Son because it is not opposed to them."[273]

There are therefore not four persons but only three. The reason is always the
same: in God all things are one and the same except where there is opposition of
relation. But there are only three relations opposed to each other, since active
spiration is not opposed to paternity and filiation. Moreover, because of the
identity of the principle, active spiration is numerically one and the same in
the Father and the Son.[274] We must always return to this principle as to the
center of the circle from which all the radii proceed. The repetition of this
principle in these articles is not a mere routine repetition but it is frequent
recourse to the source of that light which illuminates this entire treatise.

It should be noted that the relations of equality and similitude are not real
relations; they are only mental relations. St. Thomas explains this below and
the reason he gives is valid against Scotus, who held the opposite opinion.[275]
Equality is predicated after the manner of quantity, and similitude after the
manner of quality. But in God there is no quantity of the mass but only of
virtue, which like quality is reduced to the divine essence and with which it is
numerically one and the same. One thing cannot have a real reference or relation
to itself. Nor is there in God a real relation of equality because of the
relations, since one relation is not referred by another relation, otherwise
there would be an infinite process.

Objection. The divine persons are truly and really equal; therefore the
equality between them is a real relation.

Reply. I deny the consequence and the consequent. For a real relation it is
not required that the equality be taken formally; equality taken fundamentally
suffices, such as the unity of an infinite magnitude, which by reason of the
divine essence is numerically one. Thus God is really the lord of all creatures
without any real relation to them; we have here only the creative action upon
which creatures really depend. In God therefore there are only four relations,
and these are relations of origin based on the two processions.

Recapitulation Of Question Twenty-Eight

In the first article it was shown that consequent on the two processions
there are real relations in God; consequent on the eternal generation are the
relations of paternity and filiation, and consequent on the other procession are
the relations of active and passive spiration.

In the second article we saw that the relations in God are not really
distinct from the essence since the <esse in> of the relations, though it
is accidental in creatures, is substantial in God because no accident is found
in God.

In the third article we saw that the relations in God are really
distinguished from each other because they are mutually opposed. The principle
was formulated that in God all things are one and the same unless there is
opposition of relation. In the first place the objection, that those things
equal to a third are equal to each other, was solved. In the reply the major was
distinguished by conceding the proposition when the two things are not more
opposed to each other than to the third and denying it if there is such
opposition. Thus several relations were found mutually opposed but not opposed
to the essence.

In the fourth article the four relations were determined; one of them, active
spiration, was not opposed to paternity or filiation. Thus there are three
relations in mutual opposition.

As Del Prado points out: "The difference between Suarez and St. Thomas
in their explanation of the mystery of the Trinity arises from a difference in
their view of primary philosophy. The root is to be found in the fact that
Suarez, in the Disputationes metaphysicae 1. does not admit, but rejects as
absurd, the real composition of being and essence in creatures; 2. consequently
in real created relations he does not distinguish between the <esse ad>,
which is the essence or the nature of the relation, and the esse or being which
is the actuality of the essence; 3. consequently the three real relations in
God, according to Suarez, cannot be defended except as three beings, which he
and his followers call relative beings but which are in fact absolute because in
God being is the very nature or essence of God and belongs to the absolute
predicaments; 4. and consequently these three beings imply three perfections
which, like the three beings of the three relations, are in one person in such a
way as not to be in another. We have, therefore, three beings and three
perfections opposed to each other, and from this follow the difficulties already
mentioned and many others."[276]

On the other hand, all these difficulties are removed if with St. Thomas we
admit that the being of an accident (distinct from the essence) is its inesse,
and that the <esse in> of the divine relations is not accidental but
substantial and therefore one in the different relations and persons.

CHAPTER III: QUESTION 29 THE DIVINE PERSONS

IN the beginning we treat of the persons in common, then of the individual
persons, and finally of the persons in comparison with the essence and each
other. This is the content of the treatise.

Concerning the three persons in common there are four questions:

1. The meaning of the word "person."
2. The plurality of persons.
3. Their differences and similarities.
4. How they can be known by us.

The first question has four divisions: 1. the definition of person; 2. the
comparison of person with essence and subsistence; here person is identified
with the Greek <hypostasis>; 3. whether the word "person" is
used with reference to God; 4. whether in God person signifies relation. The
reply will be in the affirmative: person signifies a subsisting relation opposed
and incommunicable to others. In the appendix we shall see what is to be said
about the absolute subsistence common to the three persons.

In this question it will be made clear that the general idea of person is to
be applied to God analogically, not metaphorically but properly, without any
distinction or multiplication in the divine nature itself. A great deal of
effort was required to make this point clear. In the third century the Latins,
like Tertullian, spontaneously declared that there are three persons in God and
one substance because the names Father and Son and Holy Ghost are personal. This
statement, however, was the source of much difficulty for the Greeks, who used
the words ousia and <hypostasis> promiscuously to designate essence,
substance, and nature. On other occasions the term prosopon a translation of the
Latin persona, designated the mask or theatrical costume which actors donned to
impersonate famous personages, and this term was not considered definite enough
to express the real distinction between the divine persons. At the time of
Origen and St. Dionysius of Alexandria, however, the term <hypostasis>
designated a divine person and ousia the divine nature. St. Athanasius also used
these terms in this manner.

First Article: The Definition Of Person

State of the question. In this article inquiry is made for the definition of
person, and the definition given by Boetius and commonly accepted is defended.
St. Thomas, following the Aristotelian method, goes from the nominal definition
to the real definition by a division of the genus of substance and by an
inductive comparison of the thing to be defined with similar and dissimilar
things. These are the principal rules to be followed in the search for a real
definition as proposed in the Posterior Analytics.[277]

In the beginning St. Thomas mentions three difficulties against the Boethian
definition, "I person is an individual substance with a rational
nature."

1. No individual is defined; for example, Socrates is not defined because a
definition expresses an essence that is common to many individuals. The reply
will be: If this individual is not definable, individuality can be defined, and
individuality pertains to a person.

2. It appears that the adjective "individual" is superfluous
because the term "substance" stands for first substance which, for
Aristotle, is the individual substance.

3. The third and fourth difficulties are of minor importance. The fifth
difficulty is that a separated soul is an individual substance with a rational
nature and is not a person.

The reply of St. Thomas affirms that Boetius' definition is acceptable for
these reasons:

1. Because of Boetius' authority and because the definition has been accepted
generally by theologians.

2. The acceptability of the definition can be rationally explained. St.
Thomas assumes that the nominal definition of "person," although it is
etymologically derived from impersonation or representation of another's
features or gestures, nevertheless designates some individual rational being
distinct from others, for example, Socrates, Plato, anyone who is able to say,
"I am," or "I act," is called a person. So also all peoples
in their grammar commonly distinguish between the first, second, and third
person: I, you, he. The ancient jurists added that a person is distinguished
from things inasmuch as the person is of his own right, and at one time they
taught that in the legal sphere a slave was not a person because he was not of
his own right. At the inception of this philosophical inquiry it is sufficient
to have a general idea of person: an individual rational being, a singular
rational being distinct from others; in French un particulier, in Italian, un
tale. Briefly a person is a free and intelligent subject. The nominal
definition, which tells what the term signifies, contains intimations of the
real definition, which tells what the thing really is.

The real definition is not demonstrated; it is itself the foundation of the
demonstration of the properties of the thing defined. The real definition is
methodically sought out by a division of the genus and by inductive comparison.
In going from the nominal to the real definition of a person, therefore, we must
consider the supreme genus of the thing to be defined and this genus must be
correctly divided. The article should be read carefully.

The genus of the thing to be defined is substance. On this point St. Thomas
notes at the beginning of the body of the article that in the genus of substance
the individual is a special instance. Substance itself is individuated by itself
whereas accidents are individuated by the subject in which they are. Hence
individual substances have some special name; they are called hypostases or
first substances or supposita, that is, the first subject of attribution of
those things belonging to these substances. For example, this tree is a
suppositum as is this dog. Aristotle calls individuals first substances (as
Peter, Socrates); second substances are the genera and species, as man, animal,
living being. Therefore this distinction is a division into individual and
universal substances. Aristotle said that second substances are predicated of
first substances as of subjects not because they inhere like accidents but
because they express the nature of this particular subject.[278]

Aristotle said that individuals subsist per se and that genera and species do
not subsist except in individuals. The suppositum is that which exists
separately and acts per se. First substance therefore is the same as the
suppositum or the subject of attribution of nature, existence, and accidents,
for example, this tree and this dog. Thus the person that we are to define is
compared with things dissimilar to it, namely, with accidents, and with genus
and species.

In the second part of the body of the article, St. Thomas compares person
with things similar to it, that is, with other supposita. "The particular
and the individual in rational substances is found to have a special and more
perfect mode because it has dominion over its acts and acts per se
independently. Therefore the individual substance with a rational nature bears a
special name, person. A person is defined, then, as an individual substance with
a rational nature.

"This real definition expresses that reality which is vaguely contained
in the nominal definition, namely, a rational being, individual and distinct
from others, such as Socrates, Plato, I, you, and he."

Confirmation. The validity of this definition is confirmed as we solve the
objections.

1. This individual or this person, Socrates, is indeed not defined, but the
individuality and the person abstractly considered are defined.

2. In Boetius' definition the adjective "individual" is not
superfluous since it signifies that we are dealing with first substance, with
the individual or suppositum; in other words, with the real subject which cannot
be attributed to another subject.

3. The term "individual" is used to designate that mode of
existence which belongs to particular substances, which alone are able to
subsist separately per se. Hence "individual" means as much as
incommunicable to another suppositum; the person of Peter cannot be predicated
of another subject or attributed to another subject.

4. In this definition nature signifies essence.

5. A separated soul is not called a person because it is a part of a human
species, whereas "person" signifies the complete whole existing
separately, for example, Peter and not his soul, which is attributed to him.
Having set up the definition of person, we must now examine the nature of
personality.

The Nature Of Personality

Methodically we go from the nominal definition of personality to its real
definition. Here again we observe the laws for establishing a definition laid
down by Aristotle and St. Thomas.[279] We begin with the nominal definition not
only of person but of personality itself. According to the common sense of men,
personality is that by which some subject is a person, just as existence is that
by which some subject exists. This may appear to be somewhat ingenuous, yet we
have an intimation here that personality, whatever certain writers may say, is
not formally constituted by existence.[280] Philosophically the transition to
the real definition is made by comparative induction, by comparing this
personality which we wish to define with similar and dissimilar things and by
correctly dividing the genus of substance to which personality belongs.

Various opinions of Scholastics, who are divided into those who admit or do
not admit the real distinction between what a thing is and its being, and
between the created essence and being

Denying this distinction, Scotus said that personality is something negative,
namely, the negation of the hypostatic union in an individual nature such as
Socrates or Peter.[281] Suarez, likewise rejecting this real distinction between
created essence and being, said that personality is a substantial mode
presupposing the existence of an individual nature and rendering it
incommunicable.[282]

Among those who with St. Thomas admit the real distinction we find three
opinions.

Cajetan and many other Thomists say that personality is that by which an
individual nature becomes immediately capable of existing separately per se.
Others with Capreolus say somewhat less explicitly that personality is the
individual nature under the aspect of its being.[283] Lastly, Cardinal Billot
reduces personality to the being that actuates an individual nature.[284]

Many moderns abandon the ontological approach to this question and consider
it from the psychological and moral viewpoint. They declare that personality is
constituted either by the consciousness of oneself or by liberty. Consciousness
and liberty, however, are only manifestations of the personality; the subject
that is conscious of itself must first be constituted as a subject capable of
saying. So also the free subject is indeed morally of its own right by liberty,
but it also must first be ontologically constituted as I, you, or he.

The true idea of personality. We are looking for the real ontological
definition of personality within the genus of substance, because a person is an
intelligent and free substance or subject. We proceed progressively by dividing
the genus of substance by affirmation and negation and by comparing the
personality which we want to define with similar and dissimilar things.

1. Personality, or that by which anything is a person, is not something
negative; it is positive just as the person of which it is the formal
constituent. If the dependence of an accident is something positive, a fortiori
the independence of the subject or the person is positive, that is, that by
reason of which the person exists separately per se. Moreover, since the
personalities of Socrates and Peter belong to the natural order, they cannot be
defined by a denial of the hypostatic union, which is something essentially
supernatural and unique. If this were true, it would follow that the personality
could not be known naturally.

2. Personality, as something positive, must be something substantial and not
accidental because the person is a substance. Hence personality in the proper
sense cannot be constituted by consciousness or liberty. Thus personality is
compared with dissimilar things and with accidents; we now compare it with
similar and related things in the genus of substance.

3. Personality is something substantial but it is not the nature of substance
itself, nor this particular nature, but it is this individual human nature,
since nature even as individuated is attributed to the person as an essential
part. St. Thomas says: "The suppositum signifies the whole which has nature
as a formal part that perfects it."[285] We do not say, "Peter is his
own nature," because the whole is not the part; it is greater than the part
and contains other things besides.

Nor is personality the nature itself under the aspect of being, since the
individual nature, Peter for example, is not that which exists but that by which
it is a man. That which exists is Peter himself, the person of Peter. We are now
asking for that by which something is what it is. Personality therefore is not
the individual nature under the aspect of being; otherwise, since there are two
natures in Christ, Christ would have two persons and two personalities.

4. Nor is personality Peter's existence because existence is attributed to
Peter as a constituted person after the manner of a contingent predicate. Indeed
existence is a contingent predicate of every person that has been created or can
be created, for no human or angelic person is its own being. Therefore, as St.
Thomas says, "In every creature there is a difference between that which is
and its being."[286] He also says: "Being follows nature not as
something that possesses being but as that by which a thing is; but it follows
the person as something that has being."[287] If, therefore, being follows
the person constituted as a person, it does not formally constitute the person.

If being formally constituted the created person, the real distinction
between the created person and being would be destroyed, and it would no longer
be true to say that Peter is not his own being. In other words, that which is
not its own being is really distinct from its being, distinct apart from the
consideration of our minds. But the person of Peter, as well as his personality
which formally constitutes his person, is not Peter's being. Therefore Peter's
person and his personality are really distinguished from his being. We shall see
this all most clearly in heaven when we see God, who alone is His own being and
who alone can say, "I am who am."

5. Personality, therefore, is something positive and substantial, determining
an individual nature of substance so that it will be immediately capable of
existing separately per se. More briefly, it is that by which a rational subject
is what it is. Existence, however, is a contingent predicate of the subject and
its ultimate actuality and therefore existence presupposes the personality,
which cannot be, as Suarez would have it, a substantial mode following on
existence. Personality is, as it were, the terminal point where two lines meet,
the line of essence and the line of existence. Properly it is that by which an
intelligent subject is what it is. This ontological personality is the
foundation of the psychological and moral personality or of the consciousness of
self and dominion of self.

This real definition explicitly enunciates what is vaguely contained in the
accepted nominal definition: personality is that by which the intelligent
subject is a person just as existence is that by which a subject exists.
Therefore personality differs from the essence and from the existence which it
brings together.

In order to show that the quid rei is confusedly contained in the quid
nominis and that the real definition of personality should preserve what is
vaguely contained in the nominal definition, Cajetan says: "The word
'person' and similarly the demonstrative personal pronouns like 'I,' 'you,' and
'he,' all formally signify the substance and not a negation or an accident or
something extraneous. If we all admit this, why, when scrutinizing the quid rei,
that is, when going from the nominal to the real definition, do we depart from
the common admission?"[288] Why do we depart from the common sense of
mankind, from natural reason, and forget the nominal definition of the person?

It is not surprising, then, that this opinion is accepted by a great many
theologians, by Ferrariensis, John of St. Thomas, the Salmanticenses, Goudin,
Gonet, Billuart, Zigliara, Del Prado, Sanseverino, Cardinal Mercier, Cardinal
Lorenzelli, Cardinal Lepicier, Hugon, Gredt, Szabo, Maritain, and many
others.[289]

Certain texts of Capreolus are quoted to show that the person is the nature
under the aspect of being.[290] These texts, however, are not really opposed to
Cajetan's stand because for Capreolus personality is properly that by which the
individual rational nature becomes immediately capable of existence and it is
clear that what exists is not the nature of Peter but his person, that is, Peter
himself. In other words, personality is that by which the intelligent and free
subject is constituted as a subject possessing its own nature, faculties,
existence, operations, consciousness, and the actual free dominion over itself.

Finally this theory, accepted by many theologians, is based not only on the
texts of St. Thomas cited above but on many others, such as, "The form
designated by the word 'person' is not the essence or the nature but the
personality."[291] For St. Thomas, therefore, personality is a kind of form
or formality or modality of the substantial order. "The name person is
imposed by the form of personality which gives the reason for the subsistence of
such a nature."[292] Accordingly personality is that by which the rational
subject has the right to being separately per se. Thus personality is a
substantial mode, antecedent to being, not subsequent to being, because being is
the ultimate actuality of a thing or of the subject.

Moreover, St. Thomas taught: "(In Christ) if the human nature had not
been assumed by the divine person, the human nature would have had its own
personality, and to that extent the divine person is said to have consumed the
human nature, although this is not the proper expression, because the divine
person by its union impeded the human nature from having its own
personality."[293] Thus, according to St. Thomas, personality is
distinguished from the individual nature and also from existence because
"being follows the person as something that possesses being," and
therefore being does not constitute the person.[294] Lastly he says, "The
three (divine) persons have but one being," and therefore "the
personality is not the same as the being since there are in God three
personalities and one being";[295] and "being is not by reason of the
suppositum," for a created suppositum is its own being.[296]

We conclude that a person is a free and intelligent subject and that it is
predicated analogically of men and angels, and of the divine persons, and that
personality is that by which this subject is what it is, namely, that which
determines an individual nature to be immediately capable of existing separately
per se.[297]

Corollaries

1. Personality excludes a threefold communicability. 1. It formally excludes
the communicability of nature to another suppositum because the nature already
exists in a suppositum. 2. By presupposition and materially it excludes the
communicability of the universal to the individual because the person is an
individual itself and has an individuated nature. This incommunicability
properly pertains to the individuation of nature which takes place in us and in
corporeal beings by matter determined by quantity inasmuch as a specific form as
received in this matter is no longer communicable.[298] 3. Personality excludes
the communicability of the part to the whole because the person is a complete
substance.[299] Thus a separated soul is not a person but a principal part of a
person. Thus we do not say, "Peter is now in heaven," but "the
soul of Peter." On the other hand we say, "After the Ascension, Jesus
is in heaven; and after the Assumption, the Blessed Virgin is in heaven and not
only her soul." The humanity of Christ is not a person for, while it is
individuated and singular, it is not a suppositum or a subject, but it pertains
to the suppositum of the incarnate Word.

2. In this way we explain that there is but one person in Christ, that is,
one intelligent and free subject, although He has two intellects and two wills.
So also we see how in God there are three persons and one nature and one being.
We say this because there are three free and intelligent subjects although they
have the same nature, the same essential intellect, the same liberty, and the
same essential love. Contradiction is avoided by the fact that the three divine
persons are relative and that they are opposed to each other, as we shall see
below.

3. Personality is quite different from that individuation whose principle is
matter determined by quantity. Individuation properly excludes the
communicability of the universal to the inferior and it takes place through
something lower than the universal, that is, by the matter in which the form is
received so that the received form is no longer subject to participation.[300]

On the other hand, personality properly and formally excludes the
communicability of nature to another subject or suppositum because the nature is
terminated and possessed by one subject existing separately per se, for example,
by Peter, and now Peter's human nature cannot be attributed to Paul. St. Thomas
says: "Person signifies that which is most perfect in all nature, namely,
something subsistent (existing separately per se) in rational nature,"
whereas our individuation derives from something lower than ourselves, namely,
matter.[301]

In Christ, although individuation as in us is derived from matter, the
personality is uncreated and differs infinitely from matter. The term
"individual" designates that which is inferior in man, that which is
subordinate to the species, to society, and to the country; person designates
that which is superior in man, that by reason of which man is ordered directly
to God Himself above society. Thus society, to which the individual is
subordinate, is itself ordered to the full perfection of the human person, as
against statism, which denies the higher rights of the human person. We thus
arrive not only at a concept which is definite and distinct but at a vital
concept of the person immediately subject to God loved above all things. Such is
the definition of person. For a simple understanding of the dogma it is
sufficient to say that the person is a free and intelligent subject and is
predicated analogically of man, the angels, and the three divine persons, for
each of these is a free and intelligent subject.[302]

Second Article: Whether Person Is The Same As Hypostasis, Subsistence, And
Essence

State of the question. In this article we establish the equivalence of the
Latin term persona with the Greek term <hypostasis>. St. Thomas, as is
clear from his replies to the second and third difficulties, realized the
difficulties arising on this point between the Greeks and Latins. The Greeks
refused to accept the term "person" because for them it signified the
mask which actors in the theater wore to represent famous personages; and since
an actor successively wore masks to impersonate different heroes, they sensed
the danger of Sabellianism, according to which the divine persons are merely
different aspects of God acting ad extra.

On the other hand, the Latins rejected the term
"<hypostasis>" because it often designated substance and thus
implied the danger of Arianism, which taught that there were in God three
substances, some of which were subordinate substances.

These difficulties were eliminated by St. Basil's clear distinction between
the meaning of the terms ousia and <hypostasis>. Ousia, he said, signifies
the substance which is numerically common to the three persons;
<hypostasis> signifies that which is individual and real so that there is
a real distinction between the persons. Then the Greek formula of three
hypostases was accepted as equivalent to the Latin of three persons.
Nevertheless the Greek formula could not be expressed in the Latin translation
because the terms "subsistence" and "suppositum" were not
yet in use.

These terms, the correlative abstract and concrete forms, did not exist in
the fourth century; St. Hilary and St. Augustine did not know them. The term
"subsistence" was invented by Rufinus about 400.[303] Rufinus derived
the term "subsistence" from subsistere just as "substance"
came from substare. This was logical enough because the Latins had said that the
divine persons subsist. The word "<hypostasis>" was finally
accepted by the Latins, and the union of the two natures in Christ was even
called the hypostatic union.[304]

Boethius, writing at the beginning of the sixth century, did not appreciate
Rufinus, happy discovery and taught that if the Church would permit it,
absolutely speaking we could say that there were three substances in God. In
this present article, St. Thomas strove to place a favorable interpretation on
Boethius' words, and out of this came the complexity of this article. Thus in
explaining Boethius' words, in his reply to the second difficulty, he says:
"We say that in God there are three persons and subsistences as the Greeks
say there are three hypostases. But since the term 'substance' which in its
proper significance corresponds to '<hypostasis>' is used equivocally by
us, sometimes meaning essence and sometimes <hypostasis>, the Latins in
order to avoid any error preferred to translate '<hypostasis>' by the term
'subsistence', rather than the term 'substance.'" This was happily done by
Rufinus.

But Boethius, misunderstanding the matter, distinguished differently between
subsistere and substare when he said that substare referred to accidents and
therefore only individuals were substances with respect to their accidents,
whereas only genus and species, which do not have accidents, could be said to
subsist. Here was Boethius, principal error: he inverted Rufinus, formulas and
said that in God there were three substances and one subsistence (or substantial
nature).

Rufinus, however, had said that in God there were three subsistences and one
substance. Thus Boethius gave a false meaning to the word
"subsistence" invented by Rufinus. Rusticus, a deacon of the Roman
Church, restated the true meaning of the word. From that time
"<hypostasis>" has been translated by "subsistence"
and later by "suppositum" for the concrete form. Indeed the concrete
correlative of subsistentia is not subsistere but suppositum just as the
concrete correlative of "personality" is "person."

The complexity of this present article can be attributed to these fluctuating
translations and especially to Boethius, unfortunate interference. The first two
difficulties proposed at the beginning of the article are therefore not
objections, because after explanations are made they conclude as does the
article itself. The two arguments in the sed contra are objections taken from
Boethius, who misunderstood the meaning of "<hypostasis>."

Reply. In spite of these objections the conclusion of the article is clear:
in the genus of rational substances the term "person" signifies what
these three terms, <hypostasis>, substance, things in nature (res naturae)
signify in the whole genus of substances, namely, the suppositum or the first
subject of attribution. We recall that substance is said to be twofold: second
substance, or ousia, and first substance, which has four names: suppositum,
subsistence, <hypostasis>, and thing in nature.

The first name, "uppositum," signifies the logical relation of the
subject of attribution to the predicate; the three others signify the thing
itself and not the logical relation. Thus "subsistence," taken
concretely, signifies the first substance as existing separately per se;
"thing in nature" signifies first substance as it is placed under some
common nature; and <hypostasis> as it is placed under accidents. It should
be noted that <hypostasis> in the concrete is the same as first substance,
and subsistence is now understood in the abstract and corresponds to personality
and not to person.

The following should be kept clearly in mind: The concrete correlative of
subsistence is the suppositum as personality corresponds to person. Certain
authors, attempting to identify subsistence with the existence of substance, say
that the concrete correlative of subsistence is to subsist (subsistere), just as
to exist is the correlative to existence. This is erroneous because the
suppositum, of which subsisting and existing are predicated as contingent
predicates, ought to have in itself that by which it is a suppositum, and this
is subsistence, or if it is a rational being, personality. Clearly the concrete
correlative of personality is not "to subsist" but the person.
Actually, the abstract correlative of "to subsist" is the existence of
the substance, just as the existence of the accident corresponds to inhering
itself.[305]

Briefly this article may be reduced to this: In the genus of rational
substances person designates the same as <hypostasis> or suppositum in the
whole genus of substances, namely, that which exists separately per se.

St. Thomas' replies to the second, fourth, and fifth difficulties are
favorable interpretations of certain texts of Boethius, who wrote rather
inaccurately on this question.

Third Article: Whether The Term Person Can Be Applied To God

The reply is in the affirmative as pertaining to faith as is clear from the
Athanasian Creed: "For there is one person of the Father, another of the
Son, another of the Holy Ghost."[306]

The body of the article gives the theological argument, which may be
presented as follows. Every perfection is to be attributed to God. But
"person" signifies what is most perfect in all of nature, namely, a
free and intelligent subject, or a subsisting being with a rational nature.
Therefore it is proper to speak of God as a person, and this in the most
excellent manner. God is subsisting being itself with an intellectual nature
and, therefore, whatever pertains to the person belongs to Him formally and
eminently. For this reason theistic philosophers speak of a personal God in
opposition to the pantheists, who say that God is immanent in the universe in
which He operates not freely but necessarily.

In his reply, St. Thomas states that God is the highest and most intelligent
being per se. To the second difficulty he replies that the term
"person" in its formal being most properly belongs to God since the
dignity of the divine nature exceeds every dignity. His third reply shows he
understood the difficulty that arose between the Greeks and the Latins. In his
reply to the fourth objection, he says: "Individual being cannot belong to
God so far as matter is the principle of individuation but only so far as
individual being denotes incommunicability." This was also noted by Richard
of St. Victor. Thus the person of the Father is incommunicable to the Son; thus
also it is explained that the humanity of Christ, which is individuated by
matter, is not a person because it is communicated to the suppositum of the
divine Word, in which it exists.

From this, however, a problem arises. If the person denotes incommunicability
in the divine nature, how can the Father communicate His nature to the Son? This
problem will be solved in the following articles.

Fourth Article: Whether In God The Term Person Signifies Relation

State of the question. In this question this article is of major importance.
In the foregoing article we saw that in God, who is the most simple being, there
can be no plurality except that of real relations mutually opposed. According to
revelation, however, there are several persons in God. We must show, therefore,
that a divine person can be constituted by a real divine relation. All the
difficulties mentioned at the beginning of the article are reduced to this:
person signifies something absolute and not relative. This becomes evident from
the following considerations. 1. Person is predicated with reference to itself
and not to another; 2. in God person is not really distinguished from the
essence; 3. person is defined as an individual substance with a rational nature;
4. in men and angels person signifies something absolute and, if it signifies
relation in God, it would be used equivocally of God and of men and angels.

Reply. The divine person signifies relation as subsisting. Boethius
says," very name referring to persons signifies a relation." Thus
Father signifies the relation to the Son, Son signifies the relation to the
Father, and Holy Ghost signifies the relation to the Spirators. "By the
relative names of the persons the Father is referred to the Son, the Son to the
Father, and the Holy Ghost to both, for while we speak of the three persons
relatively we believe in only one nature or substance... . For that which is the
Father is not with reference to Himself but to the Son,... but, on the other
hand, when we say God, this is said without reference to another."[307]
"In the relation of the persons we discern number... . In this number alone
do the persons indicate that they are referred to each other."[308]
"In God all things are one and the same except where there is opposition of
relation."[309]

In the body of the article St. Thomas presents three opinions and then offers
the most acceptable opinion.

1. The opinion of the Master of the Sentences: even in God the term
"person" in the singular may be taken to mean something absolute, but
in the plural it is taken to mean something relative, contrary to the teaching
of the heretics, especially the Arians, who said that the three persons are
subordinate substances. St. Thomas replied that if the term "person"
even in God in the singular signifies something absolute, we are not
sufficiently removed from the error of the Arians. By affirming the plurality of
persons we might be multiplying something absolute.

2. The term "person" in God signifies essence directly and relation
indirectly, because, as it is said, the person is said to be one per se. This,
however, is false etymology. This opinion is corrected by the following.

3. The term "person" in God signifies relation directly and essence
indirectly. This opinion, St. Thomas remarks, approaches more closely to the
truth.

Then St. Thomas offers proof for his own opinion: the divine person signifies
relation as subsisting.

Person in general signifies an individual (or distinct) substance with an
intellectual nature, or a <hypostasis> distinct from others. But in God
there are no real distinctions except according to the relations of origin,
which are subsisting.[310] Therefore in God person signifies a distinct relation
as subsisting.

This is to say, in general there are two things in the person: the
distinction by incommunicability (I, you, he) and subsistence in the
intellectual nature. But these two things are not found in God except in the
real relations mutually opposed and thus really distinct, whose <esse in>
is substantial and entirely the same as subsisting being itself.

More briefly we may say that person in any nature means a subsisting being
distinct from others. But in God there is no distinction except according to the
real relations, which are subsisting. Therefore in God person signifies relation
not as relation but as subsisting. In this way we preserve the analogy of person
in God, namely, a subsisting being distinct from others. In another place St.
Thomas says: "The signified relation is included indirectly in the meaning
of divine person, which is nothing else than a subsisting being in the divine
essence distinct by relation,"[311] or a subsistence distinct by relation
in the divine nature.

Difficulty. The person renders a nature incommunicable to another suppositum.
But the subsisting relation of paternity does not render the divine nature
incommunicable. Therefore this subsisting relation of paternity does not
constitute a person.

Reply. I distinguish the major: an absolute person renders a finite nature
incommunicable, I concede; a relative person renders a divine nature
incommunicable, this I subdistinguish: as of itself, I concede; in other
respects, I deny. Thus the divine nature as terminated by paternity is
incommunicable and in God there is only one Father and the Father alone
enunciates. In an equilateral triangle the first angle constructed renders the
surface incommunicable as of itself only, but this surface is communicated to
the other opposite angles.

This reply will appear less clear than the objection because the objection
arises from our inferior mode of knowledge, whereas the reply is taken from the
height of the ineffable mystery and therefore requires profound meditation and
mature thought. It is not necessary for theology to show that all the objections
made against the mysteries are evidently false; it is sufficient to show that
they are not necessary and cogent, in the words of St. Thomas.[312]

At the end of the body of the article several corollaries are presented.

First corollary. As the Deity is God, so the divine paternity is God the
Father.[313] In God there is nothing except the Deity for there are no
individuating notes from matter, no accidents, nor a being distinct from
essence. Hence God and Deity are the same and the Father and the paternity are
the same. On the other hand, Socrates is not his humanity, which is only an
essential part; the whole is not the part, but it is greater than its part.

It is not perfectly true to say that Michael is his own Michaelity because,
although the Michaelity is individuated of itself and not by matter, yet there
are in Michael accidents and being besides his essence.

Second corollary. In God person signifies relation directly as subsisting and
essence indirectly.

Third corollary. Inasmuch as the divine essence is subsisting per se, it is
signified directly by the term person, and relation as relation, not as
subsisting, is signified indirectly.

Reply to the first objection. The term "person" even in God refers
to Himself inasmuch as it signifies relation, not as relation, but as
subsisting; for example, the Father as subsisting refers to Himself although as
a relation He refers to the Son.

Reply to the third objection. In our understanding of an individual
substance, that is, a distinct and incommunicable substance, we understand a
relation in God, as was said in the body of the article.

Reply to the fourth objection. In God the analogy of person is preserved, for
it is something subsisting and distinct from others (a free and intelligent
subject) which is proportionally predicated of the divine persons, angelic and
human persons. But the three divine persons understand by the same essential
intellection and they love by the same essential love.

First doubt. Are the divine persons constituted only by the subsisting
relations opposed to each other or also by everything that belongs to them?

Against Praepositivus and Gregory of Rimini, the Thomists reply that the
divine persons are constituted as persons by the fact that they are
distinguished from each other. But they are distinguished from each other by
nothing except the opposite subsisting relations, otherwise they would differ by
essence and in essence. It has been defined, however, that they are the same in
essence. Hence the Council of the Lateran declared: "The Most Holy Trinity
is individual according to the common essence and separate according to the
personal properties."[314] The Council of Florence says: "The divine
persons differ by their properties."[315]

Confirmation. What is common to the three persons cannot constitute a special
person distinct from the others. But all things that are absolute in God are
common to the three persons.

Second doubt. Are the divine persons constituted by the active and passive
origins, as St. Bonaventure thought, or according to the opinion attributed to
him?

The reply is in the negative, for by its essential concept person denotes a
fixed and permanent being since it is the ultimate terminus of nature, rendering
it incommunicable and subsisting. But origin is essentially conceived as
becoming; active origin is conceived as the influx and emanation from a
principle, and passive origin is conceived as the path or tendency to a
terminus. Active origin presupposes the person from which it issues, and passive
generation is conceived as something supposed prior to the constitution of the
person of the Son, according to our manner of thought.[316]

Third doubt. Is the person of the Father constituted by innascibility, as
Vasquez thought?

The reply is in the negative, because innascibility taken formally is merely
the negation of a principle and thus cannot constitute the person of the Father,
which, since it is real, must be constituted by something real and positive. If,
however, innascibility is taken fundamentally, the basis implied is either
something absolute, and then it cannot constitute a particular person, or it is
something relative, and then it can be nothing else than the relation of
paternity. Vasquez had proposed this opinion to solve the following difficulty.

The Special Difficulty In The Latin's Concept

In this present article we can examine a particular difficulty arising from
the concept of the Latin theologians. The problem is as follows: The relation
which follows upon active generation cannot constitute the person who begets.
But the relation of paternity follows upon active generation, for it is founded
on it. Therefore this relation of paternity cannot constitute the person of the
begetting Father. The person must first exist before it begets, because
operation follows being.

This objection is somewhat clearer than the reply because the difficulty
arises from our imperfect manner of thinking, whereas the reply must come from
the heights of this ineffable mystery.

In examining this difficulty, St. Thomas says: "The special property of
the Father, His paternity, can be considered in two ways. First, as it is a
relation and as such according to our understanding it presupposes the notional
act of generation because the relation as such is founded on the act. Secondly,
as it constitutes the person, and as such it is understood as prior to the
notional act just as a person in act is understood as prior to the
action."[317]

This is to say that the relation, of paternity for example, as a relation
actually referring to its terminus does indeed presuppose active generation and
is founded on it, just as the relation of filiation is founded on passive
generation. But the active generation itself presupposes the begetting person
and its personal property, that is, paternity, as it constitutes the person of
the Father. There is here no contradiction because this relation of paternity is
not considered under the same aspect, but first as a relation actively looking
toward the terminus and founded on active generation, and secondly as the
proximate principle (principium quo) of active generation or as constituting the
begetting person.

As in the equilateral triangle the first angle constructed, while it is
alone, is itself a geometric figure, that is, an angle, but it does not yet
refer to the other two angles not yet constructed.

In explaining St. Thomas' teaching, Thomists have offered two replies to this
objection. Some Thomists reply by distinguishing the major: the relation of
paternity, considered as referring to something, follows generation; but
considered as in something, it precedes generation. But the difficulty remains
since the <esse in> is something common to the divine relations and the
three persons and therefore it cannot constitute a particular person as distinct
from the others and as incommunicable. The <esse in> does not confer
incommunicability; only the <esse ad> does this.

Other Thomists (Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, and Billuart) reply as follows
to this important difficulty. Even with regard to the <esse ad> the
relation of paternity as that by which the divine essence is modified in actu
signato precedes the active generation, although it follows it with regard to
the <esse ad> in the actual exercise (in actu exercito), that is, in the
actual exercise of that respect after the manner of the actual tendency and
attainment of the terminus. Hence these Thomists say that the relation of
paternity, as that by which the divine essence is modified in actu signato,
constitutes the person of the Father; and the relation of paternity as that
which in the exercise of the act (in actu exercito) is founded on active
generation supposes the person of the Father as already constituted. Thus the
doctrine of St. Thomas is maintained: the persons are constituted by the
relations as subsisting and not as relations. And thus the notional act of
active generation has its origin in the person of the Father as subsisting and
in the relation itself as really incommunicable.

I insist. Relative things are the same in nature and in knowledge. But the
Father, as has been said, is understood before generation. Therefore the Son
also is understood before generation, which is absurd.

Reply. I distinguish the major: relative things are the same in nature and
knowledge in actu exercito, I concede; in actu signato, I deny. I
contradistinguish the minor: the Father is understood before generation in actu
signato as a subsisting person, I concede; in actu exercito with regard to the
Son, this I deny.

In other words, the ad as such denotes the respect to another either by the
opposition of the terminus or by the attainment of the terminus. In the relation
of opposition itself we may consider either the opposition between two persons
or the exercised relation of one to another; for example, I refer to you, but I
am distinct from you. So the Father refers to the Son, but the Father is not the
Son.

I insist. The first thing in the <esse ad> is to refer in act to the
terminus rather than being a relative incommunicable entity. Therefore the
difficulty remains.

Reply. I deny the antecedent. Just as the first thing is for whiteness to be
constituted in itself as that by which something is made white before the wall
is whitened (ut quod), for the form precedes its formal effect not by the
priority of time but of causality.

I insist. The opposition in a relation arises from the reference, since it is
the opposition of one relative thing to the correlative. Therefore the reference
in act is prior to the opposition to the terminus. And the difficulty remains.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: the exercised opposition in the relation
arises from the exercised reference (in actu exercito), I concede; the
entitative opposition arises from the reference in actu exercito, this I deny.
The entitative opposition arises in the actu signato. Similarly, whiteness in
actu signato is opposed to blackness in actu signato, and whiteness as actually
existing in a wall actively opposes blackness existing in another wall. In a
word, the form precedes its formal effect not in time but by nature.

The following analogies illustrate this point. Sanctifying grace is thought
of first as it is in itself before we think of it as driving out sin and making
the soul pleasing to God. The rational soul is thought of first in itself as a
nature before we think of it as conferring a specific being and life on the
body. Similarly a relation first affects the subject as that by which (ut quo)
and later it refers exercite to the terminus, for first a thing must be
constituted in itself before it tends toward something else. We cannot conceive
of it as attaining its terminus before it is in itself.

In human generation, in that indivisible instant in which the rational soul
is created and united to the body, the ultimate disposition of the body in
preparation for the soul precedes the creation of the soul in the genus of
material or dispositive causality; but it follows the creation of the soul (as a
property of the soul) in the genus of formal, efficient, and final causality.
For it is the rational soul itself which in this instant of time gives to the
body not the penultimate but the ultimate disposition to itself; and this
disposition is then a property of the soul. When this property of the soul in
its body is destroyed by death, the soul is separated from the body. Here there
is no contradiction because the ultimate disposition precedes and follows the
form but not in the same genus of causality. Thus the causes are causes of one
another but in different classes and thus there is no vicious circle.

In the same way the phantasm precedes the idea in the line of material
causes, but the phantasm completely assumed to express sensibly an idea does not
exist prior to the idea. When a man succeeds in discovering a new idea, in the
same moment he often discovers the appropriate phantasm for the sensible
expression of that idea.

So also the motion of sensibility precedes and follows volition under a
twofold aspect. Again, at the end of a period of deliberation the final
practical judgment precedes the free choice, which it influenced, but at the
same time it is the free choice which made the practical judgment final by
accepting it.

In the contract of marriage the consent of the man is expressed in a word,
but that word has no effect unless it is accepted by the woman. After the woman
accepts, the marriage is definitively ratified, but not before. Here the consent
of the man precedes as consent and, although it is pronounced relatively to the
woman, it does not actively affect the consent of the woman unless later the
woman consents and expresses that consent. These analogies are to some extent
explicative of the matter.

We return to St. Thomas, teaching. The divine person is constituted by the
relation as subsisting and not as a relation. Thus the generation of the Son
terminates in the person of the Son but not as that which is the object of the
relation. For, as the philosophers say, movement or generation does not
terminate per se and directly in a relation. In God, therefore, generation
terminates in the person of the Son as subsisting, or in the relation of
filiation as it is subsisting being, but not as a relation. Such was St. Thomas,
distinction which without too much complication was able to solve this
difficulty as much as it could be solved by men.

Fourth doubt. Whether in God, prior to the consideration of relations and
persons, there is some absolute subsistence besides the three relative
subsistencies.

Theologians are not agreed. The Thomists commonly reply in the affirmative;
many other theologians reply in the negative. Durandus taught that an absolute
subsistence was sufficient without relative subsistences; but this is rejected
by most theologians.

The common opinion of Thomists is that God, considered in Himself, prior to
the persons and relations, is subsisting, that He is therefore not only the
Deity but also God, subsisting being itself, and for that reason He is
understood as having intellect, will, and the power to create ad extra. But God
is not said to be subsisting with regard to Himself by a relative subsistence.
Therefore He subsists by an absolute subsistence.

Confirmation. Subsistence implies the highest perfection, namely, the most
perfect manner of being. But God, prior to our consideration of the persons,
possesses every perfection because He is pure act, existing because of Himself.
Therefore He derives no perfection from the relations, because if paternity
would be a new perfection that perfection would be lacking in the Son and thus
the Son would not be God.

Confirmation. Antecedently to the consideration of the persons, God possesses
being or the existence of that which is. But such existence presupposes
subsistence or that by which something is what it is. In other words, prior to
the consideration of the persons God is that which is, indeed He is subsisting
being itself. This seems to be the opinion of St. Thomas: "The divine
nature exists having in itself subsistence apart from any consideration of the
distinction of the persons."[318] On other occasions St. Thomas said,
"In God there are many subsisting beings if we consider the relations, but
only one subsisting being if we consider the essence."[319] This opinion
seems to follow upon the concept of the Latins, who begin, not with the three
persons, but with the divine nature.

First objection. If we place an absolute subsistence in God we have a
quaternity.

Reply. This I deny because this absolute subsistence confers the perseity of
independence from any other sustaining being but not the perseity of
incommunicability. Thus there are not four persons. It is certain that,
considered in Himself, God is singular, since He is not a universal. In Him, God
and the Deity are one. From revelation it is certain that in itself the divine
nature is communicable by the Father to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.

Second objection. According to the councils and the Fathers subsistence is
the same as <hypostasis>. But no theologian admits the existence of an
absolute <hypostasis>.

Reply. The councils and the Fathers did not deal with this scholastic
question and, when they spoke of the divine persons, they did indeed say that
subsistence is the same as the <hypostasis> but they did not intend to
exclude the absolute subsistence of which we are now speaking.

Third objection. In order that the divine nature subsist independently and at
the same time be incommunicable the personalities or relative subsistences are
sufficient. For if in God there were one personality, this would be able to
confer both kinds of perseity, of independence and incommunicability. Why cannot
this perseity be conferred by three persons?

Reply. If in God there were one personality, this would be an absolute
perfection and thus it would confer both the perseity of independence and
incommunicability. This one personality would really be that absolute
subsistence of which we are speaking and in addition it would confer
incommunicability. But such is not the case because it has been revealed that in
God there are three persons. Besides it would be incongruous that this most
perfect manner of existence in God would depend on the relations which do not
add any new perfection.

I insist. In rational creatures personality confers both the perseity of
independence and incommunicability. Therefore it should all the more do so in
God.

Reply. In rational creatures personality is an absolute subsistence, not
relative as in God. In God perfections are derived only from the essence;
incommunicability comes only from the relations.

Final objection. That which derives its existence from another does not exist
in itself. But the divine nature, prior to the relations or persons, seeks its
existence in them. Therefore it does not exist in itself.

Reply. I distinguish the major: that which seeks its existence in another
because of its own indigence, I concede; that which seeks its existence in
another because of its infinite fecundity, I deny. I contradistinguish the
minor: the divine nature does not seek existence in the relations or persons
because of any indigence, so that it can exist by itself. It is already able to
exist by itself because it is subsisting being itself, but because of its
infinite fecundity it seeks to exist in the persons as the precise terms of its
existence and not as sustainers of its own being.

I insist. The divine nature cannot exist without the relations; therefore it
is complemented by them because of its own indigence in existence.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: the divine nature cannot exist without
the relations because it is supremely fecund, I concede; because it is
deficient, I deny. It is itself subsisting being. In the same way omnipotence
cannot exist without the possibility of creatures, not because of its own
indigence but because of its fecundity. So also the Father enunciates the Word
not because of any need but because of His fecundity.

Final doubt. Why is not the absolute subsistence, modified by the relations,
sufficient without relative subsistences, as Durandus taught?

Reply. 1. Because the councils and the Fathers have often stated that each
divine person has its proper subsistence. St. Thomas declared: "As we say
that in God there are three persons and three subsistences, so the Greeks say
there are three hypostases."[320]

2. According to the Catholic faith there are three persons in God. But a
person is formally constituted by subsistence, which confers incommunicability.
Therefore in God there are three relative subsistences.

3. Otherwise no basis would exist for incommunicability nor would the
principle of active generation and active spiration be established.

Confirmation. If there were only one subsistence, modified by the three
relations, we could not truly say that there are three persons in God, just as
we could not say that there are three gods because there is one nature modified
by the three relations. We would have to confess one person alone just as we
confess one God. In order to multiply a substantive noun such as person we must
also multiply the form, which is the personality. We return then to St. Thomas,
statement that the divine persons are constituted by relative subsistences, as
they are subsisting and opposed to each other. Thus we have three relative
subsistences.

The Father is then the principle quod of active generation; the Son with the
Father is the principle quod of active spiration. God, antecedent to any
consideration of the persons, is the principle quod of the essential actions,
which are common to the three persons, such as essential intellection and
essential love as distinct from notional love (active spiration) and personal
love (the Holy Spirit).

Confirmation. The humanity of Christ is united to the Word in His personal
subsistence, which supplies the place of the created subsistence; otherwise the
three divine persons would be incarnate.

From the foregoing we may be able better to solve a difficulty that often
comes to mind. Personality renders a nature incommunicable to another
suppositum; but paternity does not render the divine nature incommunicable to
the Son, on the contrary it communicates it to the Son; therefore paternity
cannot constitute the person of the Father, and, therefore, there cannot be
three persons in God.

Reply. I distinguish the major: personality renders a nature incommunicable
as personified, I concede; personality renders a nature incommunicable in
itself, I subdistinguish: in created beings, where personality is absolute, I
concede; in God, where personality is relative, I deny. Thus the person of the
Father renders the divine nature incommunicable as personified (there is but one
Father in God), but it does not render the divine nature incommunicable in
itself. Indeed the Father, inasmuch as He implies the relation to the Son,
communicates to the Son the divine nature and thus manifests the infinite
fecundity of the divine nature.

We have sufficiently examined the questions about the processions of the
divine persons (question 27), the divine relations (question 28), and the divine
persons considered absolutely and in common (question 29). We now turn to the
plurality of the persons, and after this lengthy explanation of the fundamental
ideas we may now proceed more rapidly. We shall now study the corollaries that
can be inferred from the foregoing and the correct terminology to be used in
speaking of these truths. But we will not neglect to gather the precious gems of
knowledge which can be found in the following articles.

Recapitulation Of Question Twenty-Nine

Article 1. A person is a free and intelligent subject or an individual
substance with a rational nature.

Article 2. Person is the same as the <hypostasis> of an intellectual
nature.

Article 3. Since person signifies that which is most perfect in all nature,
namely, a subsistence with a rational or intellectual nature, it is proper that
this term be used with reference to God analogically and in the most excellent
manner. Thus in Sacred Scripture the Father and the Son, as is clear, are
personal nouns and so also is the Holy Ghost, who is mentioned with them.

Article 4. The divine persons, distinct from one another, are constituted by
the three divine subsisting relations opposed to one another, namely, paternity,
filiation, and passive spiration.

The reason for this is that "there is no distinction in God except by
the relations of origin opposed to one another." Since these relations are
not accidents but subsisting, we find in them two requisites for a person:
subsistence and incommunicability, or distinction. Thus the three divine persons
are three intelligent and free subjects, although they understand by the same
essential intellection, love themselves necessarily by the same essential love,
and freely love creatures by the same free act of love.

Therefore the paternity in God is personality, although it is relative, as
are also filiation and passive spiration. The divine paternity on its part
renders the divine nature incommunicable, although the divine nature is still
communicable to the other two persons, just as the top angle of the triangle on
its part renders its surface incommunicable, although this surface can still be
communicated to the other two angles. And as God is His own deity, so the Father
is His own paternity, the Son is His own filiation, and the Holy Ghost is His
own (quasi-) passive spiration.

CHAPTER IV: QUESTION 30 THE PLURALITY OF THE DIVINE PERSONS

Articles one and two inquire whether there are several persons in God, and
articles three and four inquire in what this plurality consists.

Article 1. In God there are several persons because there are several real
subsisting relations opposed to one another. In the reply to the fourth
difficulty, St. Thomas notes that each divine person is not a part nor is the
divine reality the whole, because the Father is as great as the entire Trinity,
as will become clear below,[321] when St. Thomas explains: "All the
relations are one according to essence and being, and all the relations are not
greater than one alone; nor are all the persons greater than one alone since the
entire (infinite) perfection of the divine nature is in each of the
persons."[322]

Article 2. In God there are not more than three persons. This truth is
revealed in the form of baptism and stated in the creeds. The theological
explanation is that the divine persons are constituted by mutually opposed
subsisting relations. But these three relations are three in number. One of the
four relations, active spiration, is opposed neither to paternity nor to
filiation. This active spiration, therefore, belongs to the Father and to the
Son. Passive spiration, however, cannot be attributed to the Father and to the
Son for then the procession of love would precede the procession of
intellection. The reader is referred to the reply to the first difficulty in the
text. It should be noted that the fact that no opposition exists between active
spiration and filiation is an implicit affirmation of the Filioque.[323]

Article 3. Whether anything is added to God by the numeral terms.

State of the question. Is there any positive significance when we say that
God is wise, or any negative significance when we say that God is incorporeal?
This is Cajetan's interpretation of the sense of this title.

Reply. The numeral terms do not add anything positive to God since they
express not a quantitative but a transcendental plurality, which is not properly
speaking a number. The transcendental multitude refers to the many of which it
is predicated in the same way that transcendental unity refers to transcendental
being. Transcendental unity merely predicates the indivisibility of being
without adding any accident. We say not only that the scholastic school of
thought is one among many theological schools but that it is also perfectly one
and united. So also the Summa Theologica is not only one among many works
written by St. Thomas but it is a work that is perfectly one because of the
intimate connection between its parts. We refer the reader to the text.

Thus, as was explained elsewhere,[324] transcendental unity differs from the
unity which is the principle of number, which is a kind of quantity. St. Thomas
in concluding the body of the article says: "When we say that the divine
persons are many, this signifies these persons and the indivisibility of each of
them since it is of the nature of a multitude that it consist of unities."
In his reply to the third difficulty, he says: "Multitude does not do away
with unity; it removes division from each of those entities which constitute the
multitude."[325]

This may be better understood when we see it verified in several instances.
The numerical multitude of individuals does not do away with the unity of the
species; the transcendental multitude of species does not do away with the unity
of genus; the transcendental multitude of genus does not do away with the
analogical unity of being, nor does the multitude of accidents in a suppositum
destroy its unity. Similarly the transcendental plurality of persons in God does
not destroy the unity of God. But if it were a numerical plurality in God, the
divine nature would be multiplied in the three individuals, and there would be
three gods.

The unity of God is a unity pure and simple, whereas the specific unity of
many men is only a qualified unity, that is, a unity according to the specific
likeness of these men, who together are a pure and simple multitude. Wherefore
the plurality of the divine persons in the bosom of the simple unity of the
divine nature is best compared analogically with the plurality of accidents,
such as, for example, the plurality of faculties in one suppositum that is
simply one rather than with the plurality of individuals in the same species.

Corollary. Thus there is in God a simple unity and a qualified plurality. The
unity is the unity of the divine nature; the transcendental plurality is the
plurality of the opposing relations. In a nature numerically one and the same
this plurality arises from the opposition of relations of origin. Therefore it
cannot be said that there are three gods, but we must say there is one God.
Again, as we shall see in the following article, we cannot say that God is
threefold, but we say He is triune in order to safeguard the simple unity which
is at the same time substantial together with the plurality that arises from the
opposing relations. Thus we say that God is one in three persons.

Article 4. Whether the term "person" is common to the three divine
persons. It seems that it is not, since nothing is common to the three persons
except the divine essence.

Reply. The term "person" is a common noun according to reason
because that which is a person is common to the three persons, namely, the
subsisting relation opposed to other relations. It is not, however, common to
the three persons by a community of the actual thing as is the divine essence,
which is one whereas there are three persons. If something were common to the
persons actually, there would be but one person as there is one nature.

Even when applied to men, the term "person" is common by a
community of reason, not indeed as are genus and species but as an undetermined
individual, as some man, that is something subsisting of itself and distinct
from others. Analogically this notion is common to the three divine persons
since each divine person subsists in the divine nature distinct from the others.
The term "person, " therefore, is common to the three divine persons
by a community of reason but not actually, as St. Thomas explains in the reply
to the third difficulty. It is common but not as genus is a common term, because
the three divine persons have one being and are subsisting being itself, which
is above all genus.

CHAPTER V: QUESTION 31 OF THE UNITY AND PLURALITY OF THE
TRINITY

We are here concerned with the manner of speaking about the Trinity in the
following four articles. 1. The name Trinity itself. 2. Whether we can say, the
Father is other than the Son. 3. Whether we can say that God is alone or
solitary. 4. Whether we can say that one person is alone, as for instance,
"Thou alone art most high." In the treatise on the Trinity this
question corresponds to the thirteenth question in the treatise on the One God,
on the names of God.[326]

First Article: Whether There Is A Trinity In God

The difficulty arises from the fact that everything that is triune is
threefold, whereas God is not threefold since He possesses the greatest unity.
Nevertheless the reply is in the affirmative as an article of faith. In the
Athanasian Creed we read, "The Unity is to be worshiped in Trinity and the
Trinity in Unity."[327]

Theology offers the following explanation. In God there is a transcendental
plurality of persons. The term "Trinity" according to revelation
limits this plurality to the three persons. Therefore the term Trinity can
rightly be used.

Reply to the first objection. Etymologically the term "Trinity"
seems to signify the unity of three, but in a special way it signifies the
transcendental number of persons of one essence. Thus we cannot say that the
Father is the Trinity. The term "Trinity" signifies at the same time
the number of persons and the unity of the essence.

Reply to the second objection. St. John declared, "And these three are
one" (I John 5:7). Hence we have the name "Trinity."

Reply to the third objection. Nevertheless in God there is no triplicity
because triplicity denotes a proportion of inequality as do duplicity and
quadruplicity. Thus we cannot say that God is threefold. That which is threefold
has in a sense been tripled, as, for instance, a triple crown signifies the
union of three crowns.

If God were said to be threefold, the three persons together would be more
than one alone, and one person would not have infinite perfection. But we can
say that the persons are threefold and the processions are twofold, because by
adding person and procession we exclude sufficiently the multiplicity of nature.

Reply to the fourth objection. Unity in Trinity signifies that there is one
nature in three persons, and Trinity in unity signifies three persons in one
nature.

Reply to the fifth objection. We cannot say that the Trinity is threefold for
this would mean that there were three supposita of the Trinity, whereas there
are only three supposita of the Deity.

First corollary. From the foregoing the Thomists, especially Gonet, conclude
that those things that belong to the persons by reason of the essence alone are
predicated only singly. Those things, however, that belong to the persons by
reason of the persons alone are predicated only in the plural. Those things that
belong to the persons by reason of the essence and the relations are predicated
both in the singular and in the plural.

The reason for this rule is that in God all things are one and the same
except where there is the opposition of relation; only the relations are
multiplied in God, the essence is not. This was defined by the Council of
Toledo: "Number is discovered in the relation of the persons; but we find
nothing that is numbered in the substance of the divinity. Thus number is
indicated only in this, that they are mutually related; and they lack number in
this, that they are in themselves."[328]

From this rule it follows that it is correct to say that there are three
persons or three hypostases in God but not three individuals because the nature
is multiplied in individuals. In its formal signification person denotes
personality; in its material signification it denotes nature. On the other hand,
the individual in its formal signification denotes nature; in its material
signification it denotes personality.

Thus we do not say that there are three individuals or three gods, because in
the three persons God is numerically one. According to the Fourth Lateran
Council, we may say that there are three divine beings, three co-eternal and
omnipotent beings if these terms are used adjectively because the multiplication
of the suppositum is sufficient for the multiplication of the adjective term
without a multiplication of the form. Thus "three divine beings"
signifies three that possess the Deity.

It is wrong, however, to say three divine beings if this expression is taken
substantively. It is in this sense that the Athanasian Creed declares, "And
yet they are not three eternals, but one Eternal," for the plural
substantive requires the multiplication of both the form and the suppositum. We
can say, "In God there is one thing (res)" which is the essence, and
several relative realities inasmuch as the divine relations are something real
and not fictitious. We can then predicate reality of God both in the singular
and plural number according to the aforesaid rule because reality belongs to the
persons both by reason of the essence and the relations.

Second corollary. As Cajetan declared: "In God according to actuality or
in the real order there is one being, neither purely absolute nor purely
relational, not mixed or composed or resulting from these two, but eminently and
formally possessing both that which is relational (with several relational
beings) and that which is absolute."[329] This is generally admitted even
by the Scotists.

Third corollary. In opposition to the Scotist formal-actual distinction on
the part of the thing, Cajetan also declared: "Even in the formal order or
the order of formal reasons in themselves, not in our manner of speaking, there
is in God one formal reason, neither purely absolute nor purely relational,
neither purely communicable nor purely incommunicable, but eminently and
formally containing both whatever is of absolute perfection and whatever the
relational Trinity demands." In God there is no distinction antecedent to
our consideration except between the divine relations that are opposed to each
other. Still the divine nature is actually communicated to the Son without a
communication of paternity. So also with regard to the Holy Ghost the divine
nature is communicated without a communication of paternity, filiation, or
active spiration, as in the triangle the entire surface of the first angle is
communicated to the second and third angles without a communication of the first
angle. Paternity cannot be communicated to the Son, because it is opposed to
filiation, as spiration is also opposed to procession.

Fourth corollary. The unity of God is more clearly manifested after the
revelation of the Trinity than before, because it now appears as that simple
unity which exists notwithstanding the real distinction of the persons and which
contains in itself eminently and formally whatever is absolute and relational.
These are the lights and shadows in our view of the Trinity.

Second Article: Whether The Son Is Other Than The Father

The difficulty arises from Christ's words, "I and the Father are
one." The reply nevertheless is that the Son is other than the Father but
not another being. This is an article of faith according to the Fourth Lateran
Council: "That being (the divine nature) does not beget, nor is it
begotten, nor does it proceed, but it is the Father who begets, the Son who is
begotten, and the Holy Ghost who proceeds, because the distinctions are in the
persons and the unity is in the nature. Although the Father is another, the Son
another, and the Holy Ghost another, each is not another being but that which is
the Father is the Son and the Holy Ghost, entirely the same, "[330] that
is, they are one according to nature and are consubstantial.

This statement of the Council was taken from the writings of St. Gregory
Nazianzen.[331] St. Fulgentius, quoted by St. Thomas in his argument sed contra,
used the same language. In this way the words of our Lord are safeguarded:
"I and the Father are one." The Son and the Father are one; the Son is
not another being, although He is other than the Father because He was begotten
by the Father.

In the body of the article St. Thomas explains this point by comparing the
masculine pronoun, which signifies a person, with the neuter pronoun, which
signifies the nature. The reader is referred to the reply to the fourth
difficulty, "The neuter gender is unformed, and so conveniently signifies
the common essence, whereas the masculine gender signifies a determined
person." In the body of the article St. Thomas determines the vocabulary to
be used in order to avoid the dangers of Arianism and Sabellianism. To avoid any
confusion with Arianism, in speaking of the divine persons we do not use the
terms diversity and difference but distinction, because diversity implies a
distinction in genus and difference implies a distinction in species. Thus we do
not say, the nature is divided into three persons, the person of the Father is
separated from the person of the Son, a disparity exists between the persons,
nor that the Son is alien to the Father, because the Son is perfectly similar
and united to the Father but distinct from Him.

To avoid Sabellianism, we do not say that God is unique, but one in three
persons, nor do we say that God is singular or that He is solitary.

Third Article: Whether We Can Say That God Is Alone

Reply. 1. We cannot say that God is alone if the word alone is taken
categorematically or absolutely, inasmuch as the meaning of the word is
attributed absolutely to the subject, in this case solitude or aloneness. This
would be tantamount to saying that God is solitary and without any consort and
would deny the society of the divine persons.

2. But if the word alone is taken syncategorematically, denoting only the
order of the predicate to the subject, it would be correct to say that God alone
is eternal, God alone is His own being, or to God alone belong honor and praise.

Fourth Article: Whether We Can Say That God The Father Is Alone

Reply. We cannot say that the Father is alone categorematically because the
Father is not solitary; but syncategorematically we can say, for instance, that
in God the Father alone enunciates or begets.

When the Church proclaims, "Thou only, O Jesus Christ, art most
high," she does not wish to say that the Son alone is most high but that
the Son alone is most high with the Holy Ghost in the glory of the Father.[332]
When Jesus said that no one knows the Son except the Father, He did not wish to
say that the Son and Holy Ghost do not know the Son, because the persons are not
excluded unless there is relative opposition, as when we say, the Father alone
begets.

In this brief examination of the correct mode of speaking about the Trinity,
we see how amazing it is that human language with all its limitations and
inadequacies is able to develop such precision in enunciating a mystery that is
in itself ineffable.

CHAPTER VI: QUESTION 32 THE KNOWABILITY OF THE DIVINE
PERSONS

At this point St. Thomas discusses the knowability of the divine persons
because he considers their knowability a property of the divine persons that has
a reference to us, just as in the treatise on the one God he treats of the
knowability of God in the twelfth question. This question contains four
articles: 1. Whether the divine persons can be known by natural reason; 2.
Whether certain notions are to be attributed to the divine persons; 3. The
number of these notions; 4. Whether we can entertain different opinions about
the divine persons.

First Article: Whether The Unity Of Divine Persons Can Be Known By Natural
Reason

St. Thomas takes up this problem after the first five questions. Recent
theologians generally treat of it in the beginning of the treatise to support
the validity of their investigations into the divine processions. The order
adopted by St. Thomas is excellent in itself, although from our standpoint it is
useful to consider the indemonstrability of this mystery at least briefly in the
beginning. We will here consider the problem at some length.

State of the question. The question is well put by St. Thomas in the three
difficulties proposed at the beginning of the article. 1. Many Platonic and
Neoplatonic philosophers admitted a certain kind of Trinity with three
hypostases, namely, the One, the Logos, and the world soul. 2. Richard of St.
Victor tried to demonstrate the Trinity from the infinity of the divine
goodness, which communicates itself infinitely in the procession of the three
divine persons and from the fact that there can be no joyous possession of any
good without some consort or association in that enjoyment. In a similar way,
St. Augustine proceeded to show the Trinity of persons from the procession of
the word and of love in our human minds. 3. If the mystery of the Trinity had no
relation to our reason, its revelation would seem to be superfluous.

We might add that Abelard tried to demonstrate the Trinity.[333] St. Anselm
frequently attempted to construct demonstrations to prove the Trinity and
sometimes indulged in what were at least wordy extravagances. In recent times
Guenther also wished to demonstrate this mystery,[334] as did Rosmini, who
brought down on himself the Church's condemnation.[335] More recently Schell, in
opposition to the rationalists and Unitarians, who said this mystery was openly
opposed to reason, tried to prove the Trinity from the nexus between aseity and
immanent processions.[336]

The reply, however, is in the negative: the Trinity of the divine persons
cannot be known by natural reason, that is, it cannot be understood or
demonstrated. This statement does not depress but rather pleases the theologian.

The proof is from 1. Scripture; 2. the authority of the Fathers; 3. the
definitions and declarations of the Church;[337] 4. theological reasoning.

1. The authority of the Scriptures. From our Lord's words, "No one
knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth anyone know the Father, but the
Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27),
it is clear that the Trinity of the divine persons is above created natural
knowledge, even that of the angels. This is confirmed by our Lord's words to St.
Peter, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not
revealed it to thee, but My Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17). The
second text, it is true, refers directly to the mystery of the Incarnation, but
if the incarnation of the Son of God is above natural reason, the mystery of the
Trinity is all the more above human reason. Hence Pope Hormisdas in writing to
the Emperor Justin said: "No visible or invisible nature is able to
investigate the secret of the Trinity."[338]

2. The authority of the Fathers. In his argument sed contra St. Thomas quotes
St. Hilary and St. Ambrose. He also adduces the authority of St. Gregory of
Nyssa, St. Fulgentius, and St. Jerome.[339] He quotes St. Gregory of Nyssa's
words, "No words can express the ineffable depth of this
mystery."[340]

3. The authority of the Vatican Council: "The mysteries hidden in God
are proposed for our belief and if they had not been divinely revealed they
could not be known... . These divine mysteries by their very nature exceed the
created intellect and even when they are handed down by revelation and received
by faith remain covered with the veil of faith and wrapped up in obscurity for
us as long as we are journeying in this life toward the Lord, for we walk not
through the species of things but by faith."[341] The same Council
declared: "If anyone shall say that the divine revelation does not contain
true and proper mysteries, but that all the dogmas of faith can be understood
and demonstrated from natural principles by the efforts of reason, let him be
anathema."[342]

The Church did not in these words define that the mystery of the Trinity is a
mystery properly so called, but it is commonly believed in the Church that the
Trinity is supreme among all mysteries, since it is the mystery of God's
intimate life, and if this mystery is not essentially supernatural, the other
mysteries, of the incarnation of the Son of God, our redemption, the sending of
the Holy Ghost, would not be essentially supernatural mysteries. Then these
mysteries would not be indemonstrable except for their contingency, since the
physical world was not created from eternity but in time, and they would not be
indemonstrable by reason of their essential supernatural nature. However, the
Council declared: "The divine mysteries are above the created intellect by
their very nature to such a degree that even when they are handed down by
revelation and received by faith" they cannot be demonstrated. This truth
was affirmed against the semirationalists Guenther and Frohschammer.

Several declarations were made by the Church against Guenther.[343] The
following propositions by Rosmini were condemned by the Church: "After the
mystery of the Trinity had been revealed, its existence can be proved by purely
speculative arguments, although these arguments are negative and indirect, and
these arguments can reduce this truth to the realm of philosophy so that it
becomes a scientific proposition like others in philosophy. If this proposition
were denied, the theosophic doctrine of pure reason would not only be incomplete
but it would be destroyed because of consequent absurdities."[344]
Rosmini's teaching that there are "three supreme forms of being, namely,
subjectivity, objectivity, and holiness and, when these forms are transferred to
absolute being, they cannot be conceived as anything else than living and
subsisting persons," was also condemned.[345]

Guenther taught something like this when he defined personality as the
consciousness of oneself. "Consciousness," he said, "presupposes
the duality of the subject and the object and the knowledge of their identity.
The subject is the Father, the object is the Son or the Word, and their
substantial identity is the Holy Ghost." Further he declared, "If in
God there were but one person, God would not be conscious of Himself."[346]
This last statement is obviously false since God is subsisting intellect itself.
Moreover, according to Guenther's theory, there should be not only three who are
conscious of themselves but also three consciousnesses in order that there be
three personalities, and then in God there would be three intellects. This would
be tritheism, and something essential in God would be multiplied.[347]

Because of these different authoritative statements it is clear that the Holy
Trinity cannot be known naturally, even after its existence is known by
revelation. It is also clear that the real possibility of this mystery cannot be
positively demonstrated even after revelation. If once the possibility could be
proved, the actual existence would also be proved because in necessary things
existence follows possibility, and the Trinity is not contingent as are the
Incarnation and the Redemption.

4. The theological proof. In God only that can be known naturally which is
necessarily and evidently connected with creatures.

We can know nothing about God naturally except through created effects, as
was shown above,[348] and the natural principles which are known from a
consideration of created being. But from these created effects, at least those
that are natural, we cannot arrive at the knowledge of the Trinity because these
effects proceed from the creative power or God's omnipotence, which is common to
the entire Trinity and, like the divine intelligence and the divine will,
pertains to the unity of the essence and not to the distinction of the persons.
Therefore it is impossible to come to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural
reason.

The major of this argument is philosophically and theologically certain.[349]
The minor is of faith according to the Fourth Lateran Council, which said that
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are "co-omnipotent and co-eternal,
one principle of all things."[350] By philosophy and theology it can be
shown that omnipotence pertains to the divine nature as it is one and not as it
is threefold in the persons, since each person does not have its own proper and
distinct omnipotence. Thus created effects do not per se proceed from God as
triune but only concomitantly inasmuch as the creative power is one and the same
in the three persons. The reader is referred to St. Thomas' article, in which he
clarifies this truth more than did his predecessors.

Objection. If created effects were known more perfectly, as they are known,
for instance, by the angels, perhaps the Trinity could be known from them.

Reply. An effect, no matter how perfectly it is known, will not lead to the
knowledge of the cause except under that aspect by which it proceeds from the
cause and according to the dependence of the effect on the cause. Thus a
painting makes known the painter, but it does not tell whether the painter was
large or small, fat or lean. Created effects, at least natural effects, do not
depend on God as triune but only as He is one.

Confirmation. In the body of the article St. Thomas adds two theological
arguments. "Anyone who tries to prove the Trinity of persons by natural
reason derogates from faith in two ways. 1. He derogates from faith because it
is concerned with things that do not appear and are hidden in God... . 2. Such
an attempt arouses the derision of non-believers since they are led to believe
that we depend on human reasonings and believe because of them." The holy
doctor concludes: "We should not try to prove the things that are of
faith...; it is enough to make a defense by showing that what faith proclaims is
not impossible." He says "make a defense," that is, by solving
objections and offering reasons of convenience.

Reply to the first objection. The philosophers did not know a Trinity of
persons, but the attributes which were later attributed to the persons. The
Neoplatonists spoke of three subordinate hypostases which were not equal and
which were quite different from the three equal divine persons. They spoke of 1.
the one, which is also the supreme good (the god of Plato); 2. the first
intelligence (the god of Aristotle); 3. and the world soul (the god of the
Stoics).

Reply to the second objection. Concerning the Trinity, reason can offer
non-demonstrative reasons, arguments of convenience. Thus from the infinite
goodness of God we are persuaded by an argument of convenience to accept God's
fecundity within Himself, but this is no proof. In the same way from the fact
that our intellect produces a word we cannot prove that there is a word in God;
in us the word is a result of need, in God the word is from superabundance.

Reply to the third objection. Nevertheless the revelation of the Trinity is
not without relation to the truths of the natural order, which it confirms. The
Trinity confirms the freedom of creation, for if God made all things by His
Word, He did not create by a necessity of nature or of knowledge; since He is
already fecund within Himself He does not need to create in order to be
fecund.[351] The revelation of the Trinity was especially necessary for a
correct understanding of the salvation of the human race, which is accomplished
by the incarnate Son and by the gift of the Holy Ghost. These two mysteries
presuppose the mystery of the Trinity.

First doubt. Whether after the revelation of this mystery it can be clearly
demonstrated by reason alone. The reply is in the negative: 1. from the
authority of the councils, according to which mysteries in the strict sense
cannot be demonstrated even after they are revealed; 2. from theological reason
because divine revelation does not indicate that creatures depend and proceed
per se from God as triune

Second doubt. Whether the possibility of the mystery of the Trinity at least
can be apodictically proved by reason after it has been revealed. The reply is
in the negative: 1. because, as has been said, only that can be known naturally
in God which necessarily is connected with creatures. But the possibility of the
Trinity is no more clearly connected with creatures than its existence, because
the creative power is common to the three persons. 2. Moreover, in necessary
things existence follows from a real intrinsic possibility as, for instance, if
it is true that God can be wise then He is indeed most wise. But the Trinity is
not something contingent but necessary. Therefore, if by reason alone we can
prove conclusively that the Trinity is intrinsically possible, we would also
prove its existence. Such is the reasoning of many Thomists, among them Gonet
and Billuart.

Objection. Whatever can be shown to involve no contradiction is proved to be
possible. But by reason alone it can be shown that the Trinity involves no
contradiction. Therefore it can be proved to be possible, for intrinsic
possibility is simple non-repugnance to being.

Reply. I distinguish the major: if it can be shown positively and evidently
to involve no contradiction, I concede; if only negatively and probably, I
deny.[352] Thus St. Thomas says: "Theology makes use of philosophy to
counter those things which are said against the faith by showing either that
these things are false or that they are not necessary."[353] This means,
Billuart notes, when we solve the objections from reason and the contradictions
which oppose the possibility of this mystery, we show that these arguments are
at least not necessary or cogent. It suffices that this mystery be not judged to
be impossible, but not that it is evidently possible.[354] We have shown that
the possibility of this mystery cannot be disproved, nor can it be strictly
proved because we have here a mystery in the strict sense, which has no
necessary and evident connection with creatures that are naturally knowable. The
reason given by St. Thomas in the body of the article is entirely formal. In
order to understand the possibility of this mystery we must be able to see that
if God were not triune He would not be God just as we see that if God were not
omnipotent He would not be God. This truth is not manifest even in the
extraordinary intellectual visions which are granted by means of infused species
such as the angels possess; this truth cannot be seen except when the essence of
God itself is seen, and God's essence cannot be known as it is in itself by any
created species.[355]

I insist. No middle exists between the possible and the impossible. But the
rationalists cannot prove that this mystery is impossible. Therefore the
theologians can prove that it is possible.

Reply. I deny the consequence. Although no middle exists between the possible
and impossible, a middle does exist between the demonstration of possibility and
the demonstration of impossibility, for the possibility of the Trinity is
plausible although it cannot be proved. So it is with all mysteries that
transcend demonstration; they are not contrary to reason, they are above it.
Their possibility cannot be positively proved or disproved; it is only
plausible. Such is the possibility of the Incarnation, of eternal life, of the
beatific vision, of the light of glory, and the possibility of grace, which is
the seed of glory.

I insist. In the treatise on the Trinity it is at least shown that the
Trinity implies no contradiction. Therefore it is possible.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent: that we see clearly that the Trinity
implies no contradiction, this I deny; that it appears plausible, this I
concede. We say, for instance, that in God to be begotten is not less perfect
than to beget, that to be spirated is not less perfect than to spirate, but this
is not evident. We cannot prove conclusively that passive generation imputes no
imperfection in the Son of God; we only indicate it with some probability while
it is revealed elsewhere.

I insist. God as one is no less supernatural than as triune. But God as one
can be naturally known. Therefore He can be known naturally also as triune.

Reply. I distinguish the major: God as one is no less supernatural in being
as He is in Himself, I concede; as a knowable object with regard to creatures, I
deny. I distinguish the minor: God is known in this way by creatures, I concede;
otherwise, I deny.

Third doubt. Whether reason by itself alone can find analogies to make known
the divine processions. For example, if the Son of God had not been called the
Word of God in St. John's Gospel, would St. Augustine have been able to discover
the analogy of our mental word with the Word of God?

We reply with St. Thomas.[356]

1. St. Augustine would not have been able, before the revelation of the
Trinity, to propose this analogy in such a way that it would have led him to
certitude about the existence of the Trinity.

2. But after the Trinity was revealed he would have been able to propose the
analogy as probable. Indeed, it is more than probable that the analogy was not
discovered by St. Augustine, but that it is to some extent revealed in the
prologue of St. John's Gospel.

Explanation. In his reply to the second difficulty, St. Thomas says
concerning the arguments of fitness given by St. Augustine and Richard of St.
Victor: "Once the Trinity has been established, these arguments show its
congruity but not in such a way that they would be able to prove the Trinity of
persons... . So, in astronomy, in order to explain the movement of the planets,
a system of eccentrics and epicycles is adopted in order to explain the sensible
appearances of heavenly movements, but these theories are not sufficient to
prove anything, because these appearances could be proved by some other
theory."

St. Thomas adds that this is clear in these individual instances.

1. With regard to the divine goodness being diffusive of itself. It is
proposed as an argument of fitness that good is essentially diffusive of itself
and the higher the good the more intimately and abundantly is it diffusive.
Hence it is congruous that God the Father should beget the Son and with Him
spirate the Holy Ghost in the unity of nature. But this is only an argument of
congruity, for, as the Angelic Doctor says: "It is not necessary, if God is
to communicate Himself in His infinite goodness, that some infinite being should
proceed from God, but that some being should receive the divine goodness
according to its own mode of being." Thus it was that God created from
nothing finite beings because of His infinite goodness. By this argument it
cannot be demonstrated that God is infinitely fecund within Himself by that
certain diffusion of goodness which exceeds the order of efficient and final
causality and takes place by the communication of the divine nature itself to
two uncreated persons.

2. Richard of St. Victor declared that there can be no joyous possession of
any good without friendship or association, and from this argument of fitness he
showed that there should be in God some association between distinct persons.
This argument is not demonstrative because the alleged principle applies when
perfect goodness is not found in one person and therefore this person requires
the good of another person associated with itself in order to enjoy goodness
fully. But God is essentially goodness itself and He possesses it fully and thus
He differs entirely from a created person who needs the association of friends.
If there is any association in God, it exists not because of a need but because
of superabundance. Thus this argument is only an argument of congruity and not
demonstrative.

3. Nor from the fact that our intellect enunciates a mental word does it
follow necessarily that the Word is in God. Intellect is not found in God and in
us univocally, and we have seen above that God, who is subsisting intelligence
itself, does not need an accidental word for intellection.[357] Hence, if the
Word is in God, it is not accidental but substantial; moreover the Word is not
because of need but because of superabundance, and this can be known only by
revelation.

Hence, according to St. Thomas, reason of itself alone did not discover these
congruities, but after revelation it could propose such arguments. This mystery
is properly speaking essentially supernatural, transcending the spheres of
demonstration and demonstrability. In this essentially supernatural order we
cannot penetrate farther than to those things that are formally or virtually
revealed; beyond that we are in the realm of probability.

Fourth doubt. Whether, after revelation, these arguments of congruity can
explain with some probability the divine processions as they are in themselves,
or are they only convenient and useful representations without any foundation in
the divine reality.

Reply. Perhaps many would reply by taking the stand that many modern critics
take with regard to physical science: that these theories do not intend to
explain how things are in reality, that they are only convenient representations
useful in classifying known phenomena which are subject to change when other
phenomena are discovered, as, for instance, in the case of radioactivity.

Following St. Thomas, we reply that these arguments of congruity with respect
to the Trinity are not only convenient representations, but they explain reality
with some probability, or rather they explain what is not in God. Such
explanations are the more valid the more they are based on revelation. Indeed it
appears that the formal mode of the first procession by intellectual diction, if
not formally revealed by the fact that the Son of God is called the Word, is at
least certain as a virtually revealed theological conclusion. But many of the
other conclusions remain only probable.

Fifth doubt. Whether these arguments of congruity about the Trinity are
simply superior or inferior to the demonstrations given in the treatise on the
one God.

Reply. With regard to us, that is with regard to the mode and certitude of
our knowledge, they are inferior; but in themselves they are superior with
regard to the dignity of the object, because they are not beneath but above the
sphere of demonstrability, and in the essentially supernatural order we cannot
ascend higher than those things that are either formally or virtually revealed
except in the sphere of probability.

Hence it is that semirationalists, like Guenther and Rosmini, who wish to
transform these arguments of congruity into demonstrations really weaken rather
than elevate them. This is clear from Rosmini's condemned proposition: "By
these arguments the truth of the Trinity is brought within the scope of
philosophy."[358]

Against this view St. Thomas remarks: "It is useful for the human mind
to exercise itself in arguments of this kind, however weak they may be, as long
as there is no presumption of comprehending or understanding, because it is a
great satisfaction to behold these sublime matters even if our consideration is
slight and weak."[359]

Thus our natural and inefficacious desire of seeing God in His essence is not
a demonstration but it forcefully insinuates the possibility and congruity of
eternal life, of the beatific vision, of the light of glory, and of inchoate and
consummated grace. This possibility cannot be demonstrated because it is the
possibility of something that is essentially supernatural, of a mystery in the
strict sense, which transcends reason and demonstrability.[360]

These arguments of congruity are related to evidence and certitude in the
same way that a polygon is related to the circumference of a circle. The sides
of the polygon can be multiplied to infinity, but the polygon will never be
identified with the circumference because it will never be as small as a point.
In geometry we say that the polygon will be the circumference at the limit of
multiplication, but multiplication is indefinite. Great theologians and the
angels, by their natural cognition, can penetrate deeper and deeper into the
arguments of congruity about the Trinity and never attain to evidence, because
the evidence which-is beyond the limit of this progressive penetration is not
the natural evidence of demonstration but the supernatural evidence of the
beatific vision. These arguments are like the element of cogitation in faith, if
we define the act of faith as, "No believe is to think with
assent."[361] Such thinking in this life never reaches evidence; only in
heaven, where faith ceases because it cannot exist alongside vision.[362]

Recapitulation of the solution of the principal objections against the
Trinity.[363]

According to the rationalists the dogma of the Trinity is a violation of the
principles of contradiction and causality.

The first objection often proposed by the rationalists is the following.
Those things which are the same as a third are identical. This is a form of the
principle of contradiction or identity and is called the principle of
comparative identity, on which the validity of the demonstrative syllogism is
based. But the three persons are identified with the divine essence (since each
one is God). Therefore the three persons cannot be really distinct from one
another.

Reply. I distinguish the major: those things which are the same as a third in
fact and in reason are identical, I concede; which are the same as a third in
fact but not in reason, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor: but the three
persons are the same as the divine essence in fact and in reason, I deny; the
three persons are the same in fact but not in reason, I concede. I deny the
consequent and the consequence.

I insist. Those things which are the same as a third in fact but not in
reason are then identical in fact but not in reason. Thus the persons are
distinct from each other only in reason but not in reality.

Reply. I distinguish the major: those things which are the same as a third in
fact but not in reason are identical in fact but not in reason if they are no
more opposed to each other than to the same third, I concede; otherwise, I deny.
They are indeed opposed to each other by relative opposition. Just as the three
angles of the triangle, although they have the same triangular surface, with
which they are identified, nevertheless are really distinguished from each other
because between them there is opposition of relation.

I insist. But it seems to be repugnant that the same thing (the essence)
should in reality be identical with relations that are distinct from each other
and opposed to each other.

Reply. An evident contradiction would exist if the extremes which are opposed
to each other were absolutes, because each of the extremes would in itself imply
an absolute reality which would be lacking in its opposite. But the
contradiction does not appear when the extremes, as in God, are relative. We
have seen that the divine persons are constituted by subsisting relations that
are opposed to one another; but these relations have one <esse in> and are
opposed only with regard to their real <esse ad>.

This reply is based on the application of that principle, admitted by the
Greeks and the Latins, which illuminates this entire tract, namely, in God all
things are one and the same except where there is opposition of relation.[364]
Indeed those things that are the same as a third are identical if they are no
more opposed to each other than to the third, I concede; otherwise, I deny. I
contradistinguish the minor, as follows: but the three persons are the same as
the essence and besides this they are opposed to each other by the opposition of
relation, this I concede; otherwise, I deny. Therefore I deny the consequent and
the consequence.

As in the natural order, "While transitive action is the same as motion
and the reception of motion (passio), it does not follow that motion and its
reception (actio and passio) are the same, " because they are mutually
opposed by the opposition of relation, for transitive action, at least
terminatively taken, is motion as from the mover, whereas passio (the reception
of motion) is motion as in the one moved. In the words of St. Thomas,"
assio and actio imply opposite references." Similarly, paternity and
filiation, although they are in reality the same as the divine essence, "My
their proper natures imply opposite references."[365]

A second objection frequently made is the following. The dogma of the Trinity
is a violation of the principle of efficient causality, according to which
nothing produces its own being. But in this dogma the person who produces, the
Father, and the person produced, the Son, have the same divine essence.
Otherwise the Son would not be God.

To put it more briefly: Nothing produces its own being. But the Father in
begetting the Son would be producing His own being since it is the same as that
of the Son. Therefore the Father cannot beget the Son. This objection is made by
many rationalists, by the Unitarians and the Socinians.

Reply. I concede the major. I distinguish the minor: if the divine being were
caused in the Son, I concede; if it is communicated to the Son, I deny. The
conclusion is distinguished in the same way. Thus begetting in God is not a
change from non-being to being, but implies the origin of one living being from
a living principle conjoined to it. This principle is not a cause.[366]
Aristotle pointed out that a principle is more general than a cause.[367] Thus
the point is the principle of the line, but not its cause; the aurora is the
principle of the day, but not its cause. So in God the principle does not
signify priority, but origin, and the Father does not produce His own being; He
communicates it only.

The term "communicate" transcends efficient and final causality.
Thus in God to beget is not more perfect than to be begotten because in God
begetting is not causing. That which is caused does not exist before in act,
whereas that which is communicated exists before in act. For example, the first
angle of the triangle communicates its surface, already existing in act, to the
other two angles.

The third objection (by way of insistence) states that this dogma distorts
the notion of person. For personality renders a nature incommunicable to another
suppositum. But the nature which is in the person of the Father is communicated
to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. Therefore this dogma distorts the very idea of
personality.

Reply. I distinguish the major: absolute personality renders the nature
incommunicable, I concede; relative personality renders the divine nature
incommunicable, I subdistinguish: nature in itself, I deny; nature as
personified, I concede. I contradistinguish the minor: the nature which is in
the Father is communicated as nature in itself, I concede; as personified,
namely, the divine nature in the mode of the Father, I deny. Thus there cannot
be two Fathers or two Sons in the Trinity. Similarly in an equilateral triangle
the first angle constructed renders the area of the triangle incommunicable
inasmuch as it belongs to that first angle; nevertheless this same area remains
communicable and is communicated to the other two angles.

I insist. But the person renders incommunicable a nature that is numerically
the same even considered in itself. But this would not be true in God.
Therefore.

Reply. A person absolutely renders a finite nature incommunicable which,
since it is finite, is filled by the one personality. On the other hand, a
relative personality, for example, the person of the Father, does not render an
infinite nature incommunicable to other persons. The divine nature, being
infinite and infinitely fecund, is not adequately filled by one relative
personality; or, I say please prove the contrary. Personality in God differs
from human personality inasmuch as it is not something absolute but something
relative, and it is of the nature of relative things that they have a
correlative. The Father cannot be without the Son, to whom He communicates His
nature, not by causality but by the principle of origin.[368]

Second Article: Whether There Are Notions In God

In this article St. Thomas explains in opposition to Praepositivus of Cremona
that it is necessary to express the relations in the abstract, and that the
relations in the abstract are called personal properties or notions. Thus
paternity is said to be a notion or the objective reason denoting the person of
the Father, and filiation likewise is the notion or the proper reason denoting
the person of the Son, and similarly procession is the notion denoting the third
person.

The reason for having recourse to the abstract notions of paternity,
filiation, etc., is that our intellect apprehends God not as He is in Himself as
a most simple being, but in the mirror of sensible things, that is, according to
our method of knowing sensible things. The simple forms of sensible things are
signified by abstract terms, for example, animality, humanity, whereas the
suppositum is signified by concrete terms, such as this animal, and this man.

As St. Thomas says,[369] because of their simplicity we designate divine
things by abstract terms, and by concrete terms because of their subsistence.
Thus we speak of God and, the Deity, of wisdom and a wise man, of paternity and
the Father. But we add that God is His own Deity and the Father is His own
paternity. Otherwise we would not be able to reply to the heretics who ask how
the three persons are one God and how they are three. For the person of the
Father there is a special reason since the person of the Father is actively
referred to the two other persons by the two relations of paternity and active
spiration. These two relations cannot be reduced to one, otherwise filiation and
passive spiration would be identified and thus there would be only two persons.
Thus we must admit two notions for the Father, namely, paternity and active
spiration, and the latter is common to Him and to the Son.

Third Article: Whether There Are Five Notions In God

This article justifies the accepted mode of speaking of the Trinity. The
reply is in the affirmative: five notions are commonly given, namely,
innascibility, paternity, filiation, common (active) spiration, and procession.

Such is the general usage of theologians, but Scotus added a sixth, the
infecundity of the Holy Ghost. This notion is not acceptable because it does not
pertain to the dignity of the Third Person.

In the body of the article St. Thomas shows why there are no more and no less
than five notions. A notion is that which is the proper reason for knowing a
divine person. But the divine persons are multiplied according to their origin
(both active and passive). Therefore according to origin (active and passive) we
derive the notions denoting the persons. Thus we have paternity, filiation,
common active spiration, passive spiration, to which we add innascibility,
because the person of the Father is known not only by paternity but also by the
fact that He is from no one and that He is the principle without a principle.
This notion is in conformity with the dignity of the Father, but the infecundity
of the Holy Ghost is not an expression befitting the dignity of the Third
Person.[370]

First corollary. Of these five notions only four are relations, since
innascibility is not a relation but the negation of the relation of origin in
the Father.

Second corollary. Only four of the notions are properties since common
spiration belonging to two persons is not a property.

Third corollary. Of these five notions only three are personal notions, that
is, notions constituting persons, since common spiration and innascibility are
not personal. As we shall see below, innascibility does not properly constitute
the First Person.[371] We shall also see that there are two notional acts, that
is, the processions in their active sense, namely, generation and active
spiration.

Objection. Innascibility seems to be pure negation and is therefore not a
distinct notion because negation adds nothing to the dignity of the person.

Reply. Innascibility signifies that the Father is the principle without
principle, and this is a great dignity. On the other hand, infecundity does not
pertain to the dignity of the Third Person.[372]

Fourth Article: Whether We May Have Contrary Opinions About The Notions

This article was written because the Greeks held other opinions about common
spiration when they denied the Filioque.

St. Thomas replies that it is lawful to have other opinions about the divine
notions provided that no conclusions are reached contrary to the faith proposed
by the Church. With regard to the Filioque, we shall learn the doctrine of the
Church when we treat in particular of the Holy Ghost as He proceeds from the
Father and the Son. This doctrine was defined as early as 381 in the First
Council of Constantinople.[373] This concludes the questions concerning the
divine persons in common.

Recapitulation Of Question 32

In the first question on the Trinity St. Thomas began with the unity of the
divine nature and the revealed existence of the processions. He showed that the
processions were immanent or ad intra and he explained them according to St.
Augustine by analogy with the intellectual enunciation of the word and with
love. Thus the processions were seen to be after the manner of intellection and
of love. This is based on revelation since it is clear from the prologue of St.
John's Gospel that the Son of God proceeds as the intellectual word of the
Father.

In the second question he showed how these real processions, namely,
generation and spiration, are the bases of real relations according to which the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are denominated in Sacred Scripture. These
real relations are not really distinguished from the essence, but they are
really distinct from one another if relative opposition exists between them. For
it is not repugnant that the relations be mutually opposed; they are indeed not
opposed to each other in their <esse in> (for in this they are identified
with the essence) but according to their <esse ad>, which does not
properly inhere in the essence. If, on the contrary, that which is proper to a
relation inhered in the subject, as the property of quality, the opposition of
relation could not exist between the relations unless at the same time there
should be opposition in the divine essence itself. We saw also how St. Thomas
solved the objection based on the principle that those things which are the same
as a third are identical, whereas Suarez held that the principle of identity
does not apply to the Trinity.

In question 29 St. Thomas showed that the divine persons are formally
constituted by subsisting relations opposed to one another. Thus he safeguards
the analogical notion of person as something subsisting and incommunicable.
Hence the divine essence is communicable but the paternity is not.

Then St. Thomas treats of plurality in God, the proper manner of expressing
this plurality, and the knowability of this mystery.

St. Thomas thus begins with the unity of the divine nature and the two
processions as they are revealed and proceeds to the three divine persons
mentioned in revelation. Thus without detracting from the sublimity of this
mystery he explains it to some extent by showing that, even after the unity of
the divine nature is established, the Trinity of persons is not repugnant. The
possibility of the Trinity is not properly and positively demonstrated, but
congruent reasons are given to show that the divine nature ought to be fecund,
even infinitely, after the manner of intellectual generation and the spiration
of love. In this way St. Thomas retained what earlier theologians, like
Alexander of Hales and St. Bonaventure, had taught: that the good is diffusive
of itself, and that it seems that the higher the good the more intimately it
will be diffusive of itself. St. Thomas expressed this idea in his own words:
"the higher any nature is, the more intimate with it will be that which
proceeds from it."[374]

But, as has been said, with respect to creatures the good is diffusive of
itself primarily in the order of final causality and consequently in the order
of efficient causality, since everything that acts does so because of some end.
The divine processions, however, are above the order of causality, both final
and efficient. The Father is not the cause of the Son; He is only the principle.
The same is true of the Father and the Son with regard to the Holy Ghost. Hence
St. Thomas makes little use of the formula, "Good is diffusive of
itself," in this treatise on the Trinity; and in order to express the
fecundity of the divine nature he prefers the statement, "My how much
higher a nature is so much more intimate will be that which proceeds from that
nature," and "By how much greater the understanding so much more
intimate will be the intellectual concept with the intellect... . Hence, since
the divine intellect is at the apex of perfection, we must say that the divine
Word is perfectly one with Him from whom it proceeds without any diversity of
nature."[375]

The divine Word is not something accidental; it is substantial because
intellection in God is not an accident but something subsisting. The first
procession, then, is not the conception of an accidental word but the true
generation of the substantial Word. Thus to some degree the mystery is explained
notwithstanding its supernatural sublimity. We now turn to the divine persons in
particular.

CHAPTER VII: QUESTION 33 THE DIVINE PERSONS IN PARTICULAR—THE
PERSON OF THE FATHER

In this question four things are explained in particular: 1. in what I sense
the Father is a principle, 2. when the Father is so called personally, 3. when
He is so called essentially, 4. the nature of innascibility. These questions
explain the Trinity in a more concrete manner and in them we find an admirable
application of the principles which were abstractly enunciated in the preceding
questions.

First Article: Whether The Father Is A Principle

State of the question. The difficulty arises because the Father is not the
cause of the Son and therefore it seems that He cannot be the principle of the
Son. It would also follow that the Son proceeded from a principle and would
therefore be created, or at least that there were priority and posteriority in
God. That which is later depends on that which is earlier, and dependence
implies imperfection, which cannot exist in a divine person.

Reply. Nevertheless the Father is a principle. This is of faith since the
Father is defined by the Council of Florence as "the principle without
principle."[376] In many earlier councils, especially in the Sixth Council
of Toledo, the same doctrine was defined: "We confess the unbegotten and
uncreated Father, the font and origin of the entire Trinity, with whom there is
not only paternity but also the principle of paternity." St. Augustine
says: "The Father is the principle of the entire Deity."[377]

St. Thomas explains the meaning of the word "principle" in the body
of the article and in the reply to the first objection. A principle is nothing
other than that from which something proceeds. For example, a line proceeds from
the initial point, a series of numbers proceeds from unity, the light of day
proceeds from the aurora. But the Father is He from whom the Son and the Holy
Ghost proceed in God. Therefore the Father is a principle and this not in a
metaphorical but the proper sense. This is a simple explanation of the meaning
of "principle."

Reply to the first objection. This will be made clearer by contrast with the
meaning of cause, for as Aristotle himself remarks, "The meaning of
principle is more general than cause."[378] Thus we say that the point is
the principle of the line and not its cause. For the term "cause"
(especially an extrinsic cause) seems to imply the diversity of substance and
dependence of one on another, but this is not implied in the term
"principle." Hence, although the Greeks in speaking of God used the
two terms 'arche' and 'aitia' the Latin doctors never use the word
"cause," restricting themselves to the term "principle." The
reader is referred to the reply to the first objection.

Reply to the second objection. The Latins do not even use the expression
"principle" of the Son and the Holy Ghost because this implies a
certain subordination. The Son is said to be the principle from a principle,
light from light, and the Holy Ghost is similar in His own way. The beautiful
text of St. Hilary is quoted here: "The Son is not less because the one
being is given to Him." The Father and the Son both possess subsisting
being itself, yet the Father communicates this being to the Son. Analogically,
two brothers possessing something in common communicate to each other certain
gifts.

Reply to the third objection. Here the objection that principle is derived
from priority is solved. But in God there is no priority and no posteriority. I
distinguish the major: principle is derived from priority according to the use
of the word, let it pass; according to its formal significance, I deny; for
principle does not denote priority but origin. In God, however, there is the
relation of origin without priority.[379] Certainly there is no priority of time
because the processions are eternal; nor is there priority of nature because the
divine nature is numerically the same in the Father and the Son and the relation
of paternity is not conceived without the opposing relation of filiation.
Relative things are simultaneous in nature and in the intellect since one is in
the definition of the other. The Father is not constituted by something
absolute, as is the man who begets before he begets. In God, the Father does not
become the Father, but of Himself and from all eternity He is the Father and He
is formally so constituted by the subsisting relation of paternity, whose
correlative is filiation, by which the Son is constituted. So it is with the
three angles of an equilateral triangle.

In question 42,[380] speaking of the equality of the divine persons, St.
Thomas says: "(In God) dignity is absolute and pertains to the essence. As
the same essence which is paternity in the Father is also filiation in the Son,
so the same dignity which is paternity in the Father is filiation in the Son.
But in the Father this dignity is according to the relation of the giver; in the
Son it is according to the relation of the receiver." But to receive
subsisting and infinite being in itself is not something less perfect than
giving it. In the equilateral triangle the second angle constructed is not less
perfect than the first, and for the second angle to receive the total area is
not less perfect than for the first angle to communicate it. Hence the term
principle notionally belongs to the Father. The term principle, however, is also
used essentially with respect to creatures, and in this case it is common to the
three persons.

Second Article: Whether The Name Father Is Properly The Name Of A Divine
Person

This is to say, whether the name "Father" is used not
metaphorically but properly of the First Person and not of the others. The reply
is in the affirmative for so the name is used in the Gospels, for example, in
the formula for baptism, in the creeds, and by the councils.

This can be explained easily as follows. The proper name of any person
signifies that by which that person is distinguished from others. But that by
which the person of the Father is distinguished from the other persons is
paternity.

Reply to the first objection. "Father" is indeed the name of a
relation, but in God since relation is subsisting it can be the constitutive of
a person.

Reply to the third objection. The divine Word is not metaphorically called
the Son, because He is the mental concept, not accidental but substantial.
Therefore the Father is so called not metaphorically but properly.

Reply to the fourth objection. The name "paternity" as it is used
in its proper sense of God the Father has a prior significance than when it is
used as designating an earthly father, at least with regard to the thing
signified if not with regard to the manner of signification. For divine
generation is the most perfect of all because it generates not only that which
is similar in species but a Son whose nature is numerically the same as the
nature of the Father. The earthly father, moreover, in generation does not
produce the spiritual soul of his son, but only a disposition for it, nor does
he produce a son in adult age. God, on the other hand, communicates to His Son
His infinite nature, numerically the same as His own, so that His Son is
immediately and eternally as perfect as the Father.

More and more it appears that the first procession is truly and properly
generation, a generation that is spiritual in the full meaning of that word. It
is not only conception, as when we say we conceive a mental concept; conception
is only the initial stage of generation.

In God, the Father not only spiritually conceives His Son; He truly and
properly generates Him spiritually, that is, He communicates to Him His nature
in its entirety and numerically one with His own nature, which nature cannot be
multiplied or divided. The Father communicates His nature to the Son from all
eternity so that the only-begotten Son is from all eternity most perfect, an
adult, if I may say so, in His divine age and entirely equal to the Father. From
the height of his mystery light falls on the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians
(3:15): "I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all
paternity in heaven and earth is named." For from the divine paternity is
derived that spiritual paternity by which the Supreme Pontiff is the Father of
the Christian people, by which the founder of a religious order is the father of
his sons, by which the bishop is the father of his diocese, and by which the
priest is the father of the souls committed to his care. From this divine
paternity, too, is derived that earthly paternity, which is something noble and
excellent in the good Christian father, who like a patriarch gives his sons and
daughters not only corporal life but heavenly blessings as did Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob.

Third Article: Whether In God The Name Father Is Primarily Used With A
Personal Significance

State of the question. In God the word "Father" has a twofold
significance: first it is used essentially with reference to creatures, as when
we say in the Lord's Prayer," ur Father"; secondly it is used
personally with reference to the only-begotten Son.

Reply. St. Thomas says: "In God the name 'Father' is used primarily in
its personal meaning, rather than essentially."

The name "Father" in God refers primarily to the person because: 1.
it is used personally from all eternity and necessarily with relation to the
only-begotten Son, and essentially with relation to creatures only in time,
presupposing the free divine decree, which could not have been; 2. the perfect
example of paternity and filiation is found in God the Father and God the Son,
whose nature is numerically one. On the other hand, God is called essentially
the Father of intellectual creatures, not according to the communication of His
entire nature but according to the participation of the divine nature, that is,
in the likeness of grace and glory. Thus adoptive filiation is the image of
eternal filiation by nature, and this adoptive filiation is obviously much more
imperfect. In a still less perfect manner God is called the father of irrational
creatures, in which instead of His image only a mere trace is found.

Reply to the first objection. Common absolute terms are predicated prior to
personal terms. But common terms which relate to creatures, like creator, are
predicated after the personal names because they are predicated not from
eternity but in time. In other words, the Son proceeds from the Father before
creatures.

Hence, when we say in the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father,"
"Father" is predicated essentially of the three persons; so also
"Thy kingdom come" refers not to the First Person but to the three
persons. But in St. Paul's words to the Ephesians (3:15), "I bow my knees
to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and
earth is named, " and in Christ's words, "My Father," the name
"Father" refers personally to the Father, and therefore Christ made
the distinction, saying, "I ascend to My Father and to your Father"
(John 20:17).

Fourth Article: Whether To Be Unbegotten Is Proper To The Father

The reply is in the affirmative: innascibility is a property of the Father
since the Father is the principle without principle. Thus He is known by the
fact that He is not from another. Of the Father it is generally said that
"He was not made, nor created, nor begotten, nor proceeding."[381] He
is the principle without principle.[382]

Reply to the first objection. Primary and simple things are denoted by
negations, as when we say that a point is that which has no parts.

Reply to the second objection. In another way the Holy Ghost may be said to
be unbegotten since He does not proceed by generation. But the Father is
properly said to be unbegotten because He does not proceed from any other and is
the principle without principle whereas the Son is the principle from a
principle and the Holy Ghost is the principle from both persons.

Reply to the third objection. In this way the relation of the Son is denied
in the Father.

First doubt. Whether the Unbegotten is constituted as a notion by something
positive or something negative.

Reply. Following the principle laid down in the reply to the first objection:
the Unbegotten directly implies the negation of passive generation. But this
negation denotes a great dignity, for from the fact that the Father is not from
any principle it follows that He is the origin of the other persons, and this is
something positive.

All these things can be illustrated by the commentaries on Christ's
sacerdotal prayer, in which the Father is addressed personally. In this prayer
frequently and it seems with insistence the Son of God says that His Father has
given all things to Him: "Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that
Thy Son may glorify Thee. As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He
may give eternal life to all whom Thou hast given Him... . And now glorify Thou
Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was,
with Thee" (John 17:1-5).

Second doubt. Why has not a special feast been instituted in honor of the
Father?

The reply is found in the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Divinum illud
munus[383] (namely, the Holy Ghost): "A danger might arise in belief and
worship that the divine persons would be confused with each other and that the
one nature would be separated... . Wherefore Innocent XII, our predecessor,
refused the request of those who had asked for some solemnities proper to the
honor of the Father." The faithful might attribute to the principle of
origin priority of dignity, which would be in opposition to the identity of
nature.